Yet with the woes of sin and strife
    The world has suffered long;
  Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
    Two thousand years of wrong;
  And man, at war with man, hears not
    The love-song which they bring: 
  O, hush the noise, ye men of strife,
    And hear the angels sing!

  And ye, beneath life’s crushing load
    Whose forms are bending low;
  Who toil along the climbing way
    With painful steps and slow,—­
  Look now! for glad and golden hours
    Come swiftly on the wing;
  O, rest beside the weary road,
    And hear the angels sing.

  For lo! the days are hastening on,
    By prophet-bards foretold,
  When with the ever-circling years
    Comes round the age of gold;
  When Peace shall over all the earth
    Its ancient splendors fling,
  And the whole world send back the song
    Which now the angels sing.

EDMUND HAMILTON SEARS.

* * * * *

EPIPHANY.

     “We have seen his star in the east.” 
     —­MATTHEW ii. 2.

  Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
    Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid;
  Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
    Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

  Cold on his cradle the dew-drops are shining,
    Low lies his head with the beasts of the stall;
  Angels adore him in slumber reclining,
    Maker and Monarch and Saviour of all.

  Say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion,
    Odors of Edom, and offerings divine? 
  Gems of the mountain, and pearls of the ocean,
    Myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine?

  Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
    Vainly with gifts would his favor secure;
  Richer by far is the heart’s adoration,
    Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.

  Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
    Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid: 
  Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
    Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

REGINALD HEBER.

* * * * *

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST’S NATIVITY.

  This is the month, and this the happy morn,
    Wherein the Son of heaven’s eternal king,
  Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
    Our great redemption from above did bring—­
    For so the holy sages once did sing—­
  That He our deadly forfeit should release,
  And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.

  That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
    And that far-beaming blaze of majesty
  Wherewith He wont at heaven’s high council-table
    To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
    He laid aside; and here with us to be,
  Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
  And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.