‘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 shames and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals;
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiléd souls;
For which, as now in 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 shrank away,
And straight I calléd unto mind that it was Christmas day.”