Catholic Poetry

A CHRISTMAS THOUGHT

Anonymous

LITTLE Baby! gift from Heaven,
Sent to fill our days with love,
Hearken we, before thee bending,
For thy message from above.

Do thy blue eyes see the glory
Of thy soul’s home left behind?
Do thy fingers clasped hold treasure
Earthly seeking cannot find?

Dost thou wonder at us mortals,
At our strange and uncouth phrase?
Heark’ning thou, perchance, thine angel
Who beholds the Father’s face.

When thou smilest doth our Lady
Whisper how her blessed Son
Once to earth came, just as thou art,
Just as helpless, little one?

Whispers she how dear he holds thee,
How she loves thee for his sake?
Seeks to bind thee with love’s fetters
Worldly touch can never break.

We are deaf: in vain we listen,
Those sweet words we cannot hear;
Yet we feel the love protecting
Keeping evil from thee, dear.

We are blind: the heavenly glory
Hath grown dim before our eyes;
Yet our prayers for thee ascending
Even reach the far-off skies,

As we pray, the loving Shepherd
Sinless keep thee, precious one,
Till earth’s weary days are over
And the crown for heaven is won.

Baby! at thy mother gazing,
Softly smiling in her face,
Dost thou in her loving glances
Heaven’s earthly shadow trace?

Do her words, so strangely moulded,
Bear to thee a meaning clear?
Do her kisses showered upon thee
Make our cold earth seem more dear?

Unto us so near thou seemest
To the home we seek on high,
That the light within its portals
Seems around thy brow to lie.

Little treasure, Christ’s redeemed one!
With sweet reverence we gaze,
Thinking of another Infant
Born for us in other days;

One Divine, who bore thy likeness—
All thy pain and weakness bore,
Whose child-eyes with love sought Mary’s,
Fraught with worship, bending o’er.

Little hands outstretched with yearning—
Baby hands as frail as thine—
Soothing with their touch the weary;
Hands sore-wounded, sweet heart mine.

Bearing of the thorns no shadow,
Sweet with peace the brow divine;
Unto us that peace he leaveth,
Our woes shareth—thine and mine.

Darling ! if the sacred shadow
Of his thorns should ever rest On thy brow,
ah! do not blindly
Cast from thee a gift so blest.

He will give thee love and patience,
With thy thorns his peace will blend—
So, thou bearest still his likeness,
Dearest, even to the end.

The Catholic World, Vol. XXX, No. 178 (January 1880): 447-449.