Wonder’s birthday,
Which mak’st December’s face
Fairer than May,
And bidst the spring give place
To fresher winter, in whose hardy snow
A flower more sweet than the whole spring doth grow.
For winter now
A virgin plant espies,
Which all his snow
Could never equalize:
More white, more chaste is she, yet fertile too,
The King of Miracles would have it so.
For he it was
Who would be born below.
And find a place
Amongst poor us to grow.
Himself he planted in our dust that he
Might be as true a mortal thing as we.
Himself he set
And by that art was sure
That he should get
A birth all clean and pure:
Proud flesh corrupts and stains the seed we sow;
He, planted by his Spirit, will spotless grow.
Virginity
His Father wanteth not,
Though glorious he
So great a Son hath got;
Wherefore Heaven orders that a virgin be
The Lily-Mother of his purity.
Upon the white
Church-wall oft-times have I
Observ’d the light,
Which darting from the sky
Pierc’d the unbroken glass and with it brought
The orient colours in the window wrought.
So from his sphere
The Lord of Light doth come,
And passing here
His crystal Mother’s womb
Leaves her entirely whole, yet brings away
Her perfect image, born a man to-day.
He who did wear
God’s radiant boundless form
Shrinks himself here
Into a simple worm.
Heaven moulded up in earth; Eternity
Grasp’d in a span of time doth bounded lie.
All Paradise
Collected in one bud
Doth sweetly rise
From its fair Virgin bed:
Omnipotence an Infant’s shape puts on,
Immensity becomes a Little One.
But only LOVE
Would not thus scanted be,
But stoutly strove
’Gainst this conspiracy
Of strange Epitomies, and did display
Itself more full on this contracting day.
JOSEPH BEAUMONT