Not for the luckless buds our roots may bear, Now quite in bloom, now seared and cankered lying, Will I entreat you, lest they should compare My sad mortality with the fall of flowers; But hold with me your chaste communion rare, And touch with life this mortal case of ours. For you were born beyond the power of dying: I die as bounded things die everywhere.
You’re full companionship, I’m silence lonely; You’re stuff, I’m void; you’re living, I’m decay. I fall, I think, to twilight ending only, You lift, I know, to never-ending day. And knowing living gift was life for me, In narrow room of rhyme, I fixed it certainly.
Shall any man for whose dear love another Has thrown away his wealth and name in one, Shall he turn scoffer of a more than brother, To mock his needs when his desires are done? Or shall a low-born boy whose mother won him In great men great concerns his little place, Turn, when his farthing honours come upon him, To note her yeoman air and conscious grace?
Then mock me as you do my narrow scope, For you it was put out this light of mine, Traitrously wrecked my new adventured hope, Wasted my wordy wealth, spilt my rich wine, Made my square ship within a league of shore, Alas! to be entombed in seas and seen no more.
Almighty God, whose Justice, like a sun Shall coruscate along the floors of heaven: Raising what’s low, perfecting what’s undone, Breaking the proud, and making odd things even. The Poor of Jesus Christ along the street In your rain sodden, in your snows unshod, They have nor hearth, nor roof, nor daily meat, Nor even the bread of men; Almighty God.
The Poor of Jesus Christ whom no man hears Have called upon your vengeance much too long. Wipe out not tears but blood: our eyes bleed tears: Come, smite our damnéd sophistries so strong, That thy rude hammer battering this rude wrong Ring down the abyss of twice ten thousand years.
On a winter’s night long time ago (_The bells ring loud and the bells ring low_), When high howled wind, and down fell snow (Carillon, Carilla). Saint Joseph he and Nostre Dame, Riding on an ass, full weary came From Nazareth into Bethlehem. And the small child Jesus smile on you.
And Bethlehem inn they stood before (_The bells ring less and the bells ring more_), The landlord bade them begone from his door (Carillon, Carilla). “Poor folk” (says he) “must lie where they may, For the Duke of Jewry comes this way, With all his train on a Christmas Day.” And the small child Jesus smile on you.