Nor all the gods beside
Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine; Our babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.

So, when the sun in bed,

Curtained with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fettered ghost slips to his several

grave;

And the yellow-skirted fays

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

But see, the Virgin blest

Hath laid her babe to rest;

Time is our tedious song should here have

ending:

Heaven's youngest-teemèd star

Hath fixed her polished car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp

attending;

And all about the courtly stable

Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serv

iceable.

John Milton

A MOTHER IN EGYPT

About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt: and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill.

Is the noise of grief in the palace over the river

For this silent one at my side?

There came a hush in the night, and he rose with his hands a-quiver

Like lotus petals adrift on the swing of the tide.

O small cold hands, the day groweth old for sleeping!

O small still feet, rise up, for the hour is late!

Rise up, my son, for I hear them mourning and weeping

In the temple down by the gate!

Hushed is the face that was wont to brighten with laughter

When I sang at the mill;

And silence unbroken shall greet the sorrowful dawns hereafter,

The house shall be still.

Voice after voice takes up the burden of wailing

Do you not heed, do you not hear?— in the high priest's house by the wall.

But mine is the grief, and their sorrow is all unvailing.

Will he awake at their call?

Something I saw of the broad dim wings half folding

The passionless brow.

Something I saw of the sword that the shadowy hands were holding,

What matters it now?

I held you close, dear face, as I knelt and harkened

To the wind that cried last night like a soul

in sin,

When the broad bright stars dropped down and the soft sky darkened

And the presence moved therein.

I have heard men speak in the market-place of the city,

Low-voiced, in a breath,

Of a God who is stronger than ours, and who knows not changing nor pity,

Whose anger is death.

Nothing I know of the lords of the outland

races,

But Amud is gentle and Hathor the mother is mild,

And who would descend from the light of the Peaceful Places

To war on a child?

Yet here he lies, with a scarlet pomegranate petal

Blown down on his cheek.

The slow sun sinks to the sand like a shield of some burnished metal,

But he does not speak.

I have called, I have sung, but he neither will hear nor waken;

So lightly, so whitely, he lies in the curve

"The swallow flies home to her sleep in the

eaves of the altar,

And the crane to her nest."

So do we sing o'er the mill, and why, ah, why should I falter,

Since he goes to his rest?

Does he play in their flowers as he played among these with his mother?

Do the gods smile downward and love him and give him their care?

Guard him well, O ye gods, till I come; lest the wrath of that Other

Should reach to him there.

Marjorie L. C. Pickthall

CHRISTMAS CAROL

As Joseph was a-waukin',
He heard an angel sing,
"This night shall be the birthnight
Of Christ our heavenly King.

"His birth-bed shall be neither
In housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of paradise,
But in the oxen's stall.

"He neither shall be rocked
In silver nor in gold,
But in the wooden manger
That lieth in the mould.

"He neither shall be washen

With white wine nor with red,

But with the fair spring water