Earth’s Consolation, why so slow?
Thy inn is ready long ago;
Each lifts to thee his hungering eyes,
And open to thy blessing lies.
O Father, pour him forth with might;
Out of thine arms, oh yield him quite!
Shyness alone, sweet shame, I know,
Kept him from coming long ago!
Haste him from thine into our arm
To take him with thy breath yet warm;
Thick clouds around the baby wrap,
And let him down into our lap.
In the cool streams send him to us;
In flames let him glow tremulous;
In air and oil, in sound and dew,
Let him pierce all Earth’s structure through.
So shall the holy fight be fought,
So come the rage of hell to nought;
And, ever blooming, dawn again
The ancient Paradise of men.
Earth stirs once more, grows green and live;
Full of the Spirit, all things strive
To clasp with love the Saviour-guest,
And offer him the mother-breast.
Winter gives way; a year new-born
Stands at the manger’s alter-horn;
‘Tis the first year of that new Earth
Claimed by the child in right of birth.
Our eyes they see the Saviour well,
Yet in them doth the Saviour dwell;
With flowers his head is wreathed about;
From every flower himself smiles out.
He is the star; he is the sun;
Life’s well that evermore will run;
From herb, stone, sea, and light’s expanse
Glimmers his childish countenance.
His childlike labour things to mend,
His ardent love will never end;
He nestles, with unconscious art,
Divinely fast to every heart.
To us a God, to himself a child,
He loves us all, self un-defiled;
Becomes our drink, becomes our food--
His dearest thanks, a heart that’s good.
The misery grows yet more and more;
A gloomy grief afflicts us sore:
Keep him no longer, Father, thus;
He will come home again with us!