There ride no gold-encinctured kings
Against the potentates of earth;
God chooses all the weakest things,
And gives Himself in birth
With beaten slaves to draw His breath,
And sleeps with foxes on the moor,
With malefactors shares His death,
Tattered and worn and poor.
See how the plated gates unfold,
How swing the creaking doors of brass!
Victorious in defeat—behold,
Christ and His cohorts pass!
A SONG OF LAUGHTER
THE stars with their laughter are shaken;
The long waves laugh at sea;
And the little Imp of Laughter
Laughs in the soul of me.
I know the guffaw of a tempest,
The mirth of a blossom and bud—
But I laugh when I think of Cuchulain[A] who laughed
At the Crows with their bills in his blood.
The mother laughs low at her baby,
The bridegroom with joy in his bride—
And I think that Christ laughed when they took Him with staves
On the night before He died.
[A] Pronounced Cuhúlain.