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Catholic Poetry: “A Christmas Song” by Teresa Brayton (1868-1943)

Catholic Poetry: “A Christmas Song” by Teresa Brayton (1868-1943)

Last updated on: November 30, 2013 at 6:06 am by Pat McNamara

Catholic Poetry: “A Christmas Song” by Teresa Brayton (1868-1943) 2013-11-30T06:06:02-07:00 Pat McNamara

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O LORD, as You lay so soft and white,

A Babe in a manger stall,

With the big star flashing across the night,

Did You know and pity us all?

Did the wee hands, close as a rosebud curled,

With the call of their mission ache,

To be out and saving a weary world

For your merciful Father’s sake?

Did You hear the cries of the groping blind,

The woe of the leper’s prayer,

The surging sorrow of all mankind,

As You lay by Your Mother there?

Beyond the shepherds, low bending down,

The long, long road did You see

That led from peaceful Bethlehem town

To the summit of Calvary?

The world grown weary of wasting strife,

Had called for the Christ to rise;

For sin had poisoned the springs of life

And only the dead were wise.

But, wrapped in a dream of scornful pride,

Too high were its eyes to see

A Child, foredoomed to be crucified,

On a peasant Mother’s knee.

But, while the heavens with glad acclaim

Sang out the tale of Your birth,

A mystic echo of comfort came

To the desolate souls of earth.

For the thrill of a slowly turning tide

Was felt in that grey daybreak,

As if God, the Father, had sanctified

All sorrow for One Man’s sake.

O Child of the Promise! Lord of Love!

O Master of all the earth!

While the angels are singing their songs above,

We bring our gifts to Your birth.

Just the blind man’s cry, and the lame man’s pace,

And the leper’s pitiful call;

On these, over infinite fields of space,

Look down, for You know them all.

Joyce Kilmer’s Anthology of Catholic Poets (New York: Liveright, 1939), 17-18.

NOTE: Born in Ireland, Teresa Brayton was an Irish nationalist, writer and poet.

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