A Christmas Hymn

Near where the shepherds watched by night                 And heard the angels o'er them,              The wise men saw the starry light                 Stand still at last before them.              No armored castle there to ward                 His precious life from danger,              But, wrapped in common cloth, our Lord                 Lay in a lowly manger.              No booming bells proclaimed his birth,                 No armies marshalled by,              No iron thunders shook the earth,                 No rockets clomb the sky;              The temples builded in his name                 Were shapeless granite then,              And all the choirs that sang his fame                 Were later breeds of men.              But, while the world about him slept,                 Nor cared that he was born,              One gentle face above him kept                 Its mother watch till morn;              And, if his baby eyes could tell                 What grace and glory were,              No roar of gun, no boom of bell                 Were worth the look of her.              Now praise to God that ere his grace                 Was scorned and he reviled              He looked into his mother's face,                 A little helpless child;              And praise to God that ere men strove                 About his tomb in war              One loved him with a mother's love,                 Nor knew a creed therefor.