Saviour of the human race,
Thee the Godhead deigned to grace.
Brighter than the sun's bright car,
And more glorious was the star,
Which in Thee, new-born from high,
Told the incarnate Deity.
Him what time the Magians saw,
Forth their Orient gifts they draw;
Prostrate they with vows unfold
Myrrh, and frankincense, and gold.
Frankincense and gold they bring,
To announce their God and King:
Spice of aromatic myrrh,
To announce His sepulchre.
Jesus, let Thy name be blest,
To the Gentiles manifest;
To the Father glory be,
With the Spirit, and with Thee!
Bishop Mant (from the Latin).
WISE men of seekers wisely speak;
I know that I was born to seek.
The wise are sure that man is blind,
And I that they who seek shall find.
Therefore I wear out painful years
Sifting what is and what appears,
And if the things which seem conceal
What is, or if in signs reveal.
I sought in height and in descent,
If any sign could represent
Him whom to be my thoughts proclaim,
But not the secret of His name.
Seeking, I found that all things sought,
With eager stretching of the throat,
Through the world's chambers wide and high His Son and likeness to descry.
And some upon the ceiling gazed,
Where sun and moon and planets blazed,
In height and purity and rest
Finding the type of first and best.
Along the verdure-vested floor
Others I saw insanely pore,
And watch with idiot, awe-struck eye,
Ox, crocodile, or horned fly.
Where mountains nursed their lonely pride, Where restless ocean heaved and sighed, Where sea-like heaved the windy wood, Came some to worship solitude.
Some what they vainly sought around
As vainly in each other found,
And claimed the homage of the world
For youth and strength and ringlets curled.
From glittering swell of billows green
A lovely apparition seen,
Of locks like night and limbs like day,
Lured some from higher dreams away.
But beauty's sweetness soon must cloy,
And use kills awe, and care kills joy,
And damp suspicion quenches trust,
And hope's sweet savour ends in dust.
Strange horror! to see nature tired,
And how corruption all admired,
Adored the charnel, bribed the grave,
And called on Death himself to save;
How trembling took the place of love,
And Chance the place of God above;
The living shuddered at the dead,
And fiends stood by the sleeper's bed.
Thus saw I how all Nature sought,
And with her stretched my weary throat;
And still, though wise men wisely speak,
I know that I was born to seek.
Shepherds with their flcck,
And cattle stabled in a rock,
A wistful star the stable spying,
A maiden in the stable lying,
An infant in a cradle crying.
Vainly men worship thee, O star,
Now humbly watching from afar;
Vainly adore the brutes, that wait
Like suppliants round a palace-gate.
Vainly thy beauty, maiden fair,
Adoring thine own Infant there;
The hours of ignorance are run,
And all the gods adore the Son.
Write nature satisfied! Oh, write
The age-long darkness merged in light!
Approach; the name thou knewest not, thou
Shalt read on yonder Infant's brow.
Cry Rescue" to the wandering rays,
And tell the night of my desires.
Does Heaven take thought for things below, Or guide to that which men would know?
This golden roof majestical,
This brave o'erhanging canopy,
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