John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Religious PoemsThe Mystic’s Christmas
“A
“All hail!” the monks at Christmas sang,
The merry monks who kept with cheer
The gladdest day of all their year.
A pious elder brother sat
Silent, in his accustomed place,
With God’s sweet peace upon his face.
“It is the blessed Christmas-tide;
The Christmas lights are all aglow,
The sacred lilies bud and blow.
Without the happy children sing,
And all God’s creatures hail the morn
On which the holy Christ was born!
Our gladness with thy quiet look.”
The gray monk answered: “Keep, I pray,
Even as ye list, the Lord’s birthday.
Where thronged refectory feasts are spread;
With mystery-play and masque and mime
And wait-songs speed the holy time!
The Lord accepts the things we have;
And reverence, howsoe’er it strays,
May find at last the shining ways.
The blade before the ear must be;
As ye are feeling I have felt,
And where ye dwell I too have dwelt.
Beyond occasions and events,
I know, through God’s exceeding grace,
Release from form and time and place.
To hear the song the angels sung;
And wait within myself to know
The Christmas lilies bud and blow.
From him whose inward sight is clear;
And small must be the choice of days
To him who fills them all with praise!
With honest zeal your Christmas sign,
But judge not him who every morn
Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!”