| |
| AS I in hoary winter’s night | |
| Stood shivering in the snow, | |
| Surprised I was with sudden heat | |
| Which made my heart to glow; | |
| And lifting up a fearful eye | 5 |
| To view what fire was near, | |
| A pretty babe all burning bright | |
| Did in the air appear; | |
| Who, scorchèd with excessive heat, | |
| Such floods of tears did shed, | 10 |
| As though His floods should quench His flames, | |
| Which with His tears were bred: | |
| ‘Alas!’ quoth He, ‘but newly born | |
| In fiery heats I fry, | |
| Yet none approach to warm their hearts | 15 |
| Or feel my fire but I! | |
| |
| ‘My faultless breast the furnace is; | |
| The fuel, wounding thorns; | |
| Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke; | |
| The ashes, shames and scorns; | 20 |
| The fuel Justice layeth on, | |
| And Mercy blows the coals, | |
| The metal in this furnace wrought | |
| Are men’s defilèd souls: | |
| For which, as now on fire I am | 25 |
| To work them to their good, | |
| So will I melt into a bath, | |
| To wash them in my blood.’ | |
| With this He vanish’d out of sight | |
| And swiftly shrunk away, | 30 |
| And straight I callèd unto mind | |
| That it was Christmas Day. | |
| |
