But know that in sad surety when
Your sullen will betrays this earth
To sorrows of contagion, then
Beelzebub renews his birth.
When you defile the pleasant streams
And the wild bird’s abiding-place,
You massacre a million dreams
And cast your spittle in God’s face.
A CHRISTMAS NIGHT
Christ for a dream was given from the dead
To walk one Christmas night on earth again,
Among the snow, among the Christmas bells.
He heard the hymns that are his praise: Noël,
And Christ is Born, and Babe of Bethlehem.
He saw the travelling crowds happy for home,
The gathering and the welcome, and the set
Feast and the gifts, because he once was born,
Because he once was steward of a word.
And so he thought, “The spirit has been kind;
So well the peoples might have fallen from me,
My way of life being difficult and spare.
It is beautiful that a dream in Galilee
Should prosper so. They crucified me once,
And now my name is spoken through the world,
And bells are rung for me and candles burnt.
They might have crucified my dream who used
My body ill; they might have spat on me
Always as in one hour on Golgotha.” ...
And the snow fell, and the last bell was still,
And the poor Christ again was with the dead.
INVOCATION
As pools beneath stone arches take
Darkly within their deeps again
Shapes of the flowing stone, and make
Stories anew of passing men,
So let the living thoughts that keep,
Morning and evening, in their kind,
Eternal change in height and deep,
Be mirrored in my happy mind.
Beat, world, upon this heart, be loud
Your marvel chanted in my blood,
Come forth, O sun, through cloud on cloud
To shine upon my stubborn mood.