COME, YE LOFTY! COME, YE LOWLY!

By ARCHER GURNEY. [1852.]

COME, ye lofty! come, ye lowly!
Let your songs of gladness ring!

In a stable lies the Holy,

In a manger rests the King:

See, in Mary's arms reposing,

Christ by highest heaven adored :
Come! your circle round Him closing,
Pious hearts that love the Lord.

Come, ye poor! no pomp of station
Robes the Child your hearts adore:
He, the Lord of all salvation,

Shares your want, is weak and poor:
Oxen round about behold them,

Rafters naked, cold, and bare:

See the shepherds! God has told them
That the Prince of Life lies there.

Come, ye children, blithe and merry!
This one Child your model make;
Christmas holly, leaf and berry,

All be prized for His dear sake:

COME, YE LOFTY! COME, YE LOWLY!

Come, ye gentle hearts and tender!

Come, ye spirits keen and bold! All in all your homage render, Weak and mighty, young and old.

High above a star is shining,

And the Wise Men haste from far:
Come, glad hearts, and spirits pining!
For you all has risen the Star.
Let us bring our poor oblations,

Thanks and love and faith and praise:
Come, ye people! come, ye nations!
All in all draw nigh to gaze.

Hark! the heaven of heavens is ringing:
Christ the Lord to man is born:
Are not all our hearts, too, singing,
Welcome, welcome, Christmas morn?
Still the Child, all power possessing,
Smiles as through the ages past;
And the song of Christmas-blessing
Sweetly sinks to rest at last.

87

JOY AND GLADNESS.

By GEORGE W. BETHUNE, D.D.; born at New York, 1805; died at Florence, 1862. From Lays of Love and Faith, Philad. 1847

JOY and gladness! joy and gladness!

O happy day!

Every thought of sin and sadness
Chase, chase away.

Heard ye not the angels telling,
Christ the Lord of might excelling,
On the earth with man is dwelling,
Clad in our clay?

With the shepherd throng around Him
Haste we to bow:

By the angels' sign they found Him,
We know Him now;

New-born Babe of houseless stranger,
Cradled low in Bethlehem's manger,
Saviour from our sin and danger,
Jesus, 'tis Thou!

God of Life, in mortal weakness,
Hail, Virgin-born!

Infinite in lowly meekness,

Thou wilt not scorn;

JOY AND GLADNESS.

Though all heaven is singing o'er Thee,
And gray wisdom bows before Thee,
When our youthful hearts adore Thee,
This holy morn.

Son of Mary, (blessed mother!)
Thy love we claim ;

Son of God, our elder brother,
(O gentle name!)

To Thy Father's throne ascended,
With Thine own His glory blended,
Thou art, all Thy trials ended,
Ever the same.

Thou wert born to tears and sorrows,
Pilgrim divine;

Watchful nights and weary morrows,
Brother, were Thine:

By Thy fight with strong temptation,
By Thy cup of tribulation,

O Thou God of our salvation,
With mercy shine!

In Thy holy footsteps treading,

Guide, lest we stray;

From Thy word of promise shedding
Light on our way;

Never leave us nor forsake us,

Like Thyself in mercy make us,

And at last to glory take us,

Jesus, we pray.

89

IT CAME UPON THE MIDNIGHT

CLEAR.

Rev. EDMUND H. SEARS; born in 1810, in Berkshire Co., Massachusetts; autho

of Athanasia, or Foregleams of Immortality, and other works. 1850. Died 1876.

IT

came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace to the earth, good-will to men
From heaven's all-gracious King!"
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats

O'er all the weary world:

Above its sad and lowly plains

They bend on heavenly wing,

And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;