Eternities · A Christmas Carol · Alone

Eternities

I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
  Well hath He spoken: 'Swear not by thy head,
  Thou knowest not the hairs,' though He, we read,
Writes that wild number in his own strange book.

I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
  Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
  Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will name the leaves upon the trees.

In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
  Still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell;
  Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.

A Christmas Carol

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
  His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
  But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast,
  His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
  But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
  His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
  But here the world's desire.)

The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee,
  His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at him.
  And all the stars looked down.

Alone

Blessings there are of cradle and of clan,
  Blessings that fall of priests' and princes' hands;
  But never blessing full of lives and lands,
Broad as the blessing of a lonely man.

Though that old king fell from his primal throne,
  And ate among the cattle, yet this pride
  Had found him in the deepest grass, and cried
An 'Ecce Homo' with the trumpets blown.

And no mad tyrant, with almighty ban,
  Who in strong madness dreams himself divine,
  But hears through fumes of flattery and of wine
The thunder of this blessing name him man.

Let all earth rot past saints' and seraphs' plea,
  Yet shall a Voice cry through its last lost war,
  'This is the world, this red wreck of a star,
That a man blessed beneath an alder-tree.'