As Christ the Lord was passing by, <br /> He came, one night, to a cottage door. <br /> He came, a poor man, to the poor; <br />He had no bed whereon to lie. <br /> <br />He asked in vain for a crust of bread, <br /> Standing there in the frozen blast. <br /> The door was locked and bolted fast. <br />‘Only a beggar!’ the poor man said. <br /> <br />Christ the Lord went further on, <br /> Until He came to a palace gate. <br /> There a king was keeping his state, <br />In every window the candles shone. <br /> <br />The king beheld Him out in the cold. <br /> He left his guests in the banquet-hall. <br /> He bade his servants tend them all. <br />‘I wait on a Guest I know of old.’ <br /> <br />‘’Tis only a beggar-man!’ they said. <br /> ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘it is Christ the Lord.’ <br /> He spoke to Him a kindly word, <br />He gave Him wine and he gave Him bread. <br /> <br />Now Christ is Lord of Heaven and Hell, <br /> And all the words of Christ are true. <br /> He touched the cottage, and it grew; <br />He touched the palace, and it fell. <br /> <br />The poor man is become a king. <br /> Never was man so sad as he. <br /> Sorrow and Sin on the throne make three, <br />He has no joy in mortal thing. <br /> <br />But the sun streams in at the cottage door <br /> That stands where once the palace stood. <br /> And the workman, toiling to earn his food, <br />Was never a king before.<br /><br />Mary Elizabeth Coleridge<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/he-came-unto-his-own-and-his-own-received-him-no/
