The Manger Throne

Like silver lamps in a distant shrine,
The stars are sparkling bright
The bells of the city of God ring out,
For the Son of Mary is born to-night.
The gloom is past and the morn at last
Is coming with orient light.

Never fell melodies half so sweet
As those which are filling the skies,
And never a palace shone half so fair
As the manger bed where our Saviour lies;
No night in the year is half so dear
As this which has ended our sighs.

Now a new Power has come on the earth,
A match for the armies of Hell:
A Child is born who shall conquer the foe,
And all the spirits of wickedness quell:
For Marys Son is the Mighty One
Whom the prophets of God fortell.

The stars of heaven still shine as at first
They gleamed on this wonderful night;
The bells of the city of God peal out
And the angels song still rings in the height;
And love still turns where the Godhead burns
Hid in flesh from fleshly sight.

Faith sees no longer the stable floor,
The pavement of sapphire is there
The clear light of heaven streams out to the world
And the angels of God are crowding the air,
And heaven and earth, through the spotless birth
Are at peace on this night so fair.

William Chatterton Dix

William Chatterton Dix was an English writer of hymns and carols. His most famous hymns include 'As with Gladness Men of Old' and 'What Child Is This?', the latter set to the traditional English melody 'Greensleeves'. Dix was born in Bristol, England, to a surgeon named John Dix, who wrote a biography of Thomas Chatterton. During a severe illness in 1865, he experienced a religious awakening that inspired many of his hymns. Dix's works continue to be widely sung in church services.

William Chatterton Dix

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Christmas Carols.

1.

Whoso hears a chiming for Christmas at the nighest,
Hears a sound like Angels chanting in their glee,
Hears a sound like palm-boughs waving in the highest,
Hears a sound like ripple of a crystal sea.

Sweeter than a prayer-bell for a saint in dying,
Sweeter than a death-bell for a saint at rest,
Music struck in Heaven with earth's faint replying,
"Life is good, and death is good, for Christ is Best."


2.

A holy, heavenly chime
Rings fulness in of time,
And on His Mother's breast
Our Lord God ever-Blest
Is laid a Babe at rest.

Stoop, Spirits unused to stoop,
Swoop, Angels, flying swoop,
Adoring as you gaze,
Uplifting hymns of praise, -
"Grace to the Full of Grace!"

The cave is cold and strait
T...

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Translations. - A Song Of The Little Child Jesus, For Children At Christmas. Taken Out Of The Second Chapter Of The Gospel Of St. Luke. (Luther's Song-Book.)

From heaven high I come to you,
I bring a story good and new:
Of goodly news so much I bring,
Of it I must both speak and sing.

To you a child is come this morn,
A child of chosen maiden born,
A little babe so sweet and mild
Your joy and bliss shall be that child.

'Tis the Lord Christ, our very God.
He will you ease of all your load;
He'll be himself your Saviour sure
And from all sinning make you pure.

He brings you all the news so glad
Which God the Father ready had--
That you shall in his heavenly house
Live now and evermore with us.

Take heed then to the token sure--
The crib, the swaddling clothes so poor:
The infant you shall find laid there
Who all the world doth hold and bear.

Hence let us all be gladso...

George MacDonald

The Child Of The Maid

On Christmas Day The Child was born,
On Christmas Day in the morning;--
    --To tread the long way, lone and lorn,
    --To wear the bitter crown of thorn,
    --To break the heart by man's sins torn,
    --To die at last the Death of Scorn.
For this The Child of The Maid was born,
On Christmas Day in the morning.

But that first day when He was born,
Among the cattle and the corn,
The sweet Maid-Mother wondering,
And sweetly, deeply, pondering
The words that in her heart did ring,
Unto her new-born king did sing,--

"My baby, my baby,
My own little son,
Whence come you,
Where go you,
My own little one?
Whence come you?

Ah now, unto me all alone
That wonder of wonders is properly known.
Where go you?
Ah, that...

William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Christmas Hymn.

Break over the waiting hill-tops,
    White dawn of the Christmas morn!
For the angels have sung through the midnight,
    That the wonderful Babe is born.

And still in the slumbering valleys,
    The night's black tents are up,
And the young moon stands on the mountains,
    Clear and fair as a silver cup.

Under the cottage rafters,
    Silent and soft and deep,
On the swart low brow of the toiler,
    Settles the dew of sleep.

And some that watch and waken,
    Are dreaming of eyes whose ray
Was long ago quenched and hidden
    Under the shroud away.

Oh, sing thy jubilant anthem
    Over the frozen mould,
And tell that wonderful story
    Again, that never grows old!

For under the year's broad shadow,
  ...

Kate Seymour Maclean

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,

John Charles McNeill

The Manifestation

God said; "Let there be light"; and in the East
A star rose flaming from night's purple sea -
The star of Truth, the star of Joy, the star
Seen by the prophets down the lonely years;
Set for a light to show the Perfect Way;
Set for a sign that wayfarers might find;
Set for a seal to mark the Godhead's home.
And three Kings in their palaces afar,
Who waited ardently for promised things,
Beheld, and read aright.    Straightway the road
Was hot with pad of camel, horse's hoof,
While night was quick as day with spurring men
And light with flaring torch.    "Haste, haste!" they cried,
"We seek the King, the King! for in the East
His star's alight."

Bethlehem


The Angels

Soft and slow, soft and slow,
With angels' wings of fire and sn...

Michael Fairless