Part 7 (1/2)

'He neither shall be born In housen nor in hall, Nor in the place of Paradise, But in an ox's stall.

'He neither shall be clothed In purple nor in pall, But all in fair linen As wear babies all.

'He neither shall be rocked In silver nor in gold, But in a wooden cradle That rocks on the mould.

'He neither shall be christened In white wine nor red, But with fair spring water With which we were christened.'”

The old carols sung by country folk have often not much to do with the Nativity; they are sometimes rhymed lives of Christ or legends of the Holy Childhood. Of the latter cla.s.s the strangest is ”The Bitter Withy,”

discovered in Herefords.h.i.+re by Mr. Frank Sidgwick. It tells how the little Jesus asked three lads to play with Him at ball. But they refused:--

”'O we are lords' and ladies' sons, Born in bower or in hall; And you are but a poor maid's child, Born in an oxen's stall.'

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'If I am but a poor maid's child, Born in an oxen's stall, I will let you know at the very latter end That I am above you all.'

So he built him a bridge with the beams of the sun, And over the sea went he, And after followed the three jolly jerdins, And drowned they were all three.

Then Mary mild called home her child, And laid him across her knee, And with a handful of green withy twigs She gave him slashes three.

'O the withy, O the withy, O bitter withy That causes me to smart!

O the withy shall be the very first tree That perishes at the heart.'”

From these popular ballads, mediaeval memories in the rustic mind, we must return to the devotional verse of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Two of the greatest poets of the Nativity, the Roman priests Southwell and Crashaw, are deeply affected by the wave of mysticism which pa.s.sed over Europe in their time. Familiar as is Southwell's ”The Burning Babe,” few will be sorry to find it here:--

”As I in h.o.a.ry winter's night Stood s.h.i.+vering in the snow, Surprised I was with sudden heat, Which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye To view what fire was near, A pretty Babe all burning bright Did in the air appear; Who, scorched with excessive heat, Such floods of tears did shed, As though His floods should quench His flames Which with His tears were fed.

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'Alas!' quoth He, 'but newly born, In fiery heats I fry, Yet none approach to warm their hearts Or feel my fire, but I!

My faultless breast the furnace is, The fuel, wounding thorns; Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, The ashes, shame and scorns; The fuel Justice layeth on, And Mercy blows the coals, The metal in this furnace wrought Are men's defiled souls, For which, as now on fire I am, To work them to their good, So will I melt into a bath, To wash them in my blood.'

With this he vanished out of sight, And swiftly shrunk away: And straight I called unto mind That it was Christmas Day.”{38}

As for Crashaw,

”That the great angel-blinding light should shrink His blaze to s.h.i.+ne in a poor shepherd's eye, That the unmeasured G.o.d so low should sink As Pris'ner in a few poor rags to lie, That from His mother's breast He milk should drink Who feeds with nectar heaven's fair family, That a vile manger His low bed should prove Who in a throne of stars thunders above:

That He, whom the sun serves, should faintly peep Through clouds of infant flesh; that He the old Eternal Word should be a Child and weep, That He who made the fire should fear the cold: That heaven's high majesty His court should keep In a clay cottage, by each blast controll'd: That glory's self should serve our griefs and fears, And free Eternity submit to years--”{39}

such are the wondrous paradoxes celebrated in his glowing imagery. The contrast of the winter snow with the burning

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heat of Incarnate Love, of the blinding light of Divinity with the night's darkness, indeed the whole paradox of the Incarnation--Infinity in extremest limitation--is nowhere realized with such intensity as by him. Yet, magnificent as are his best lines, his verse sometimes becomes too like the seventeenth-century Jesuit churches, with walls overladen with decoration, with great languorous pictures and air heavy with incense; and then we long for the dewy freshness of the early carols.

The representative Anglican poets of the seventeenth century, Herbert and Vaughan, scarcely rise to their greatest heights in their treatment of Christmas, but with them as with the Romanists it is the mystical note that is dominant. Herbert sings:--

”O Thou, whose glorious, yet contracted, light, Wrapt in night's mantle, stole into a manger; Since my dark soul and brutish is Thy right, To man, of all beasts, be not Thou a stranger.

Furnish and deck my soul, that thou may'st have A better lodging than a rack or grave.”{40}

And Vaughan:--

”I would I had in my best part Fit rooms for Thee! or that my heart Were so clean as Thy manger was!

But I am all filth, and obscene: Yet, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make clean.

Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no more This leper haunt and soil thy door!

Cure him, ease him, O release him!