IT is the Christmas time: <br />And up and down 'twixt heaven and earth, <br />In glorious grief and solemn mirth, <br />The shining angels climb. <br /> <br />And unto everything <br />That lives and moves, for heaven, on earth, <br />With equal share of grief and mirth, <br />The shining angels sing:-- <br /> <br />'Babes new-born, undefiled, <br />In lowly hut, or mansion wide-- <br />Sleep safely through this Christmas-tide <br />When Jesus was a child. <br /> <br />'O young men, bold and free, <br />In peopled town, or desert grim, <br />When ye are tempted like to Him, <br />'The man Christ Jesus' see. <br /> <br />'Poor mothers, with your hoard <br />Of endless love and countless pain-- <br />Remember all her grief, her gain, <br />The Mother of the Lord. <br /> <br />'Mourners, half blind with woe, <br />Look up! One standeth in this place, <br />And by the pity of His face <br />The Man of Sorrows know. <br /> <br />'Wanderers in far countrie, <br />O think of Him, who came, forgot, <br />To His own, and they received Him not-- <br />Jesus of Galilee. <br /> <br />'O all ye who have trod <br />The wine-press of affliction, lay <br />Your hearts before His heart this day-- <br />Behold the Christ of God!'<br /><br />Dinah Maria Mulock Craik<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-hymn-for-christmas-morning/
