ayed:
A Saviour there is born more old than years,
Amidst heaven's rolling height this earth who stayed.
In a poor cottage inned, a virgin maid
A weakling did him bear, who all upbears;
There is he poorly swaddled, in manger laid,
To whom too narrow swaddlings are our spheres:
Run, shepherds, run, and solemnize his birth.
This is that night--no, day, grown great with bliss,
In which the power of Satan broken is:
In heaven be glory, peace unto the earth!
Thus singing, through the air the angels swam,
And cope of stars re-echoed the same.

_The Shepherds_.

O than the fairest day, thrice fairer night!
Night to best days, in which a sun doth rise
Of which that golden eye which clears the skies
Is but a sparkling ray, a shadow-light!
And blessed ye, in silly pastors' sight, _simple._
Mild creatures, in whose warm[88] crib now lies
That heaven-sent youngling, holy-maid-born wight,
Midst, end, beginning of our prophecies!
Blest cottage that hath flowers in winter spread!
Though withered--blessed grass, that hath the grace
To deck and be a carpet to that place!
Thus sang, unto the sounds of oaten reed,
Before the babe, the shepherds bowed on knees;
And springs ran nectar, honey dropped from trees.

No doubt there is a touch of the conventional in these. Especially in the
close of the last there is an attempt to glorify the true by the homage
of the false. But verses which make us feel the marvel afresh--the marvel
visible and credible by the depth of its heart of glory--make us at the
same time easily forget the discord in themselves.

The following, not a sonnet, although it looks like one, measuring the
lawful fourteen lines, is the closing paragraph of a poem he calls _A
Hymn to the Fairest Fair_.

O king, whose greatness none can comprehend,
Whose boundless goodness doth to all extend!
Light of all beauty! ocean without ground,
That standing flowest, giving dost abound!
Rich palace, and indweller ever blest,
Never not working, ever yet in rest!
What wit cannot conceive, words say of thee,
Here, where, as in a mirror, we but see
Shadows of shadows, atoms of thy might,
Still owly-eyed while staring on thy light,
Grant that, released from this earthly jail,
And freed of clouds which here our knowledge veil,
In heaven's high temples, where thy praises ring,
I may in sweeter notes h