MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS.

splendid souls with whom the Bible makes us acquainted are neither dead nor lost. If we "hear the Word of God and do it," we may hope some day to rise to the world where we shall find them, and ask of them all those untold things which our hearts yearn to know.

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A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

HE shepherds went their hasty way,
And found the lowly stable shed
Where the Virgin-Mother lay:
And now they checked their eager tread,
For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,
A mother's song the Virgin-Mother sung.

They told her how a glorious light,
Streaming from a heavenly throng,
Around them shone, suspending night;
While, sweeter than a mother's song,
Blessed angels heralded the Saviour's birth,
Glory to God on high! and peace on earth.

She listened to the tale divine,

And closer still the Babe she pressed;
And while she cried, The Babe is mine!
The milk rushed faster to her breast;

Joy rose within her, like a summer's morn:
Peace, peace on earth! the Prince of Peace is born.

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,

Poor, simple, and of low estate ; That strife should vanish, battle cease,

Oh! why should this thy soul elate?

Sweet music's loudest note, the poet's story,

Didst thou ne'er love to hear of fame and glory?

And is not War a youthful king,

A stately hero clad in mail? Beneath his footsteps laurels spring; Him earth's majestic monarchs hail!

Their friend, their playmate! and his bold bright eye
Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh.

"Tell this in some more courtly scene,

To maids and youths in robes of state!.

I am a woman poor and mean,

And therefore is my soul elate.

War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled,

That from the aged father tears his child!

"A murderous fiend, by fiends adored,

He kills the sire and starves the son,
The husband kills, and from her board
Steals all his widow's toil had won;
Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away

All safety from the night, all comfort from the day.

"Then wisely is my soul elate,

That strife should vanish, battle cease;

I'm poor, and of a low estate,

The Mother of the Prince of Peace!

Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn;

Peace, peace on earth! the Prince of Peace is born!"

265

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

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THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS.

"But see, the Virgin blest

Hath laid her babe to rest.”

MILTON'S Hymn on the Nativity.

I.

LEEP, sleep, mine Holy One!

My flesh, my Lord! what name? I do not know

A name that seemeth not too high or low,

Too far from me or Heaven.

My Jesus! that is best! that word being given

By the majestic angel, whose command

Was softly as a man's beseeching said,

When I and all the earth appeared to stand

In the great overflow

Of light celestial from his wings and head.
Sleep, sleep, my saving One!

II.

And art Thou come for saving, baby-browed
And speechless Being, art Thou come for saving?
The palm that grows beside our door is bowed

By treadings of the low wind from the south,

A restless shadow through the chamber waving :

Upon its bough a bird sings in the sun;

But Thou, with that close slumber on Thy mouth,

Dost seem of wind and sun already weary.

Art come for saving, O my weary One?

III.

Perchance this sleep, that shutteth, out the dreary
Earth-sounds and motions, opens on Thy soul

High dreams on fire with God;

THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS.

High songs that make the pathways where they roll
More bright than stars do theirs; and visions new
Of Thine eternal nature's old abode.

Suffer this mother's kiss,

Best thing that earthly is,

To glide the music and the glory through,

Nor narrow in Thy dream the broad upliftings

Of any seraph wing!

Thus, noiseless, thus. Sleep, sleep, my dreaming One!

Through my lips to mine heart; to all its shiftings
Of sensual life, bringing contrariousness

In a great calm. I feel, I could lie down

As Moses did, and die,*—and then live most.

[She pauses.]

I am 'ware of you, heavenly Presences,
That stand with your peculiar light unlost, —
Each forehead with a high thought for a crown,
Unsunned i' the sunshine! I am 'ware. Ye throw
No shade against the wall! How motionless
Ye round me with your living statuary,
While through your whiteness, in and outwardly,
Continual thoughts of God appear to go,
Like light's soul in itself! I bear, I bear,
To look upon the dropt lids of your eyes,
Though their external shining testifies
To that beatitude within which were
Enough to blast an eagle at his sun.
I fall not on my sad clay face before ye;
I look on His. I know

My spirit, which dilateth with the woe
Of His mortality,

May well contain your glory.

Yea, drop your lids more low,

Ye are but fellow-worshipers with me!
Sleep, sleep, my worshiped One!

*It is a Jewish tradition that Moses died of the kisses of God's lips.