And every year, upon the morn
When Christ was born
Within the manger-bed forlorn—
Soli Deo Gloria!
’Tis hers to bid song’s raptures run
From sun to sun,
And list to earth’s low antiphon—
Soli Deo Gloria!
Would that our praise might swell and rise
Along the skies,
And scale the gates of Paradise—
Soli Deo Gloria!
Bearing, with more complete accord,
Unto the Lord,—
Forevermore our watch and ward,—
Soli Deo Gloria!
Nazareth Town
Nazareth town in Galilee!
Set where the paths lead up from the sea
That like the chords of a mighty lyre
Dirges over the rocks of Tyre,
Mourns where the piers of Sidon shone,
And the battlements cinctured Ascalon.
They have waned as the sunset wanes;
Little more than a name remains;
But more than a name we hold it,—we,—
Nazareth town in Galilee!
Nazareth town in Galilee!
Ah, what a golden harmony
The dawn seems, flooding its bright white walls!
And, when the violet twilight falls,
What a vast processional of stars
Pageants over its stilled bazaars!
And when the full moon touches the height
Of Tabor, a torch of brilliant light,
Never was sight more fair to see;—
Nazareth town in Galilee!
Nazareth town in Galilee!
Strumming a desert melody,
The Bedouin minstrel trolls in the street;
At the Well of the Virgin the maidens meet;
The cactus-hedges crimson to flower,
And the olives silver hour by hour
As through their branches the south wind steals;
A clear bell peals, and a vulture wheels
Over the crest where the wild crags be;—
Nazareth town in Galilee!
Nazareth town in Galilee!
At the sound of the words how memory
Kindles as earth does under the spring,
Till the dead days rise for our visioning;
And out of them one compassionate face
Beams with a more than mortal grace;
Out of them one inspiring voice
Cries in the ears of the world “rejoice!”
And ever a beacon of hope shall be
Nazareth town in Galilee!