MILTON's Hymn on the Nativity

Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One!My flesh, my Lord!--what name? I do not knowA name that seemeth not too high or low,Too far from me or heaven:My Jesus, that is best! that word being givenBy the majestic angel whose commandWas softly as a man's beseeching said,When I and all the earth appeared to standIn the great overflowOf light celestial from his wings and head.Sleep, sleep, my saving One!

And art Thou come for saving, baby-browedAnd speechless Being--art Thou come for saving?The palm that grows beside our door is bowedBy treadings of the low wind from the south,A restless shadow through the chamber waving:Upon its bough a bird sings in the sun,But Thou, with that close slumber on Thy mouth,Dost seem of wind and sun already weary.Art come for saving, O my weary One?

Perchance this sleep that shutteth out the drearyEarth-sounds and motions, opens on Thy soulHigh dreams on fire with God;High songs that make the pathways where they rollMore bright than stars do theirs; and visions newOf Thine eternal Nature's old abode.Suffer this mother's kiss,Best thing that earthly is,To glide the music and the glory through,Nor narrow in Thy dream the broad upliftingsOf any seraph wing.Thus noiseless, thus. Sleep, sleep my dreaming One!

The slumber of His lips meseems to runThrough my lips to mine heart, to all its shiftingsOf sensual life, bringing contrariousnessIn a great calm. I feel I could lie downAs Moses did, and die,--and then live most.I am 'ware of you, heavenly Presences,That stand with your peculiar light unlost,Each forehead with a high thought for a crown,Unsunned i' the sunshine! I am 'ware. Ye throwNo shade against the wall! How motionlessYe round me with your living statuary,While through your whiteness, in and outwardly,Continual thoughts of God appear to go,Like light's soul in itself. I bear, I bearTo look upon the dropt lids of your eyes,Though their external shining testifiesTo that beatitude within which wereEnough to blast an eagle at his sun:I fall not on my sad clay face before ye,--I look on His. I knowMy spirit which dilateth with the woeOf His mortality,May well contain your glory.Yea, drop your lids more low.Ye are but fellow-worshippers with me!Sleep, sleep, my worshipped One!

We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,Softened their horned facesTo almost human gazesToward the newly Born:The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooksBrought visionary looks,As yet in their astonied hearing rungThe strange sweet angel-tongue:The magi of the East, in sandals worn,Knelt reverent, sweeping round,With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground,The incense, myrrh and goldThese baby hands were impotent to hold:So let all earthlies and celestials waitUpon Thy royal state.Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

I am not proud--meek angels, ye investNew meeknesses to hear such utterance restOn mortal lips,--"I am not proud"--not proud!Albeit in my flesh God sent His Son,Albeit over Him my head is bowedAs others bow before Him, still mine heartBows lower than their knees. O centuriesThat roll in vision your futuritiesMy future grave athwart,--Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keepWatch o'er this sleep,--Say of me as the Heavenly said--"Thou artThe blessedest of women!"--blessedest,Not holiest, not noblest, no high nameWhose height misplaced may pierce me like a shameWhen I sit meek in heaven!For me, for me,God knows that I am feeble like the rest!I often wandered forth, more child than maidenAmong the midnight hills of GalileeWhose summits looked heaven-laden,Listening to silence as it seemed to beGod's voice, so soft yet strong, so fain to pressUpon my heart as heaven did on the height,And waken up its shadows by a light,And show its vileness by a holiness.Then I knelt down most silent like the night,Too self-renounced for fears,Raising my small face to the boundless blueWhose stars did mix and tremble in my tears:God heard them falling after, with His dew.

So, seeing my corruption, can I seeThis Incorruptible now born of me,This fair new Innocence no sun did chanceTo shine on, (for even Adam was no child,)Created from my nature all defiled,This mystery, from out mine ignorance,--Nor feel the blindness, stain, corruption, moreThan others do, or I did heretofore?Can hands wherein such burden pure has been,Not open with the cry "unclean, unclean,"More oft than any else beneath the skies?Ah King, ah, Christ, ah son!The kine, the shepherds, the abased wiseMust all less lowly waitThan I, upon Thy state.Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

Art Thou a King, then? Come, His universe,Come, crown me Him a King!Pluck rays from all such stars as never flingTheir light where fell a curse,And make a crowning for this kingly brow!--What is my word? Each empyreal starSits in a sphere afarIn shining ambuscade:The child-brow, crowned by none,Keeps its unchildlike shade.Sleep, sleep, my crownless One!

Unchildlike shade! No other babe doth wearAn aspect very sorrowful, as Thou.No small babe-smiles my watching heart has seenTo float like speech the speechless lips between,No dovelike cooing in the golden air,No quick short joys of leaping babyhood.Alas, our earthly goodIn heaven thought evil, seems too good for Thee;Yet, sleep, my weary One!

And then the drear sharp tongue of prophecy,With the dread sense of things which shall be done,Doth smite me inly, like a sword: a sword?That "smites the Shepherd." Then, I think aloudThe words "despised,"--"rejected,"--every wordRecoiling into darkness as I viewThe DARLING on my knee.Bright angels,--move not--lest ye stir the cloudBetwixt my soul and His futurity!I must not die, with mother's work to do,And could not live-and see.

It is enough to bearThis image still and fair,This holier in sleepThan a saint at prayer,This aspect of a childWho never sinned or smiled;This Presence in an infant's face;This sadness most like love,This love than love more deep,This weakness like omnipotenceIt is so strong to move.Awful is this watching place,Awful what I see from hence--A king, without regalia,A God, without the thunder,A child, without the heart for play;Ay, a Creator, rent asunderFrom His first glory and cast awayOn His own world, for me aloneTo hold in hands created, crying--SON!

That tear fell not on Thee,Beloved, yet thou stirrest in thy slumber!THOU, stirring not for glad sounds out of numberWhich through the vibratory palm-trees runFrom summer-wind and bird,So quickly hast thou heardA tear fall silently?Wak'st thou, O loving One?--