The birth day of the Christ child dawneth slow
Out of the opal east in rosy flame,
As if a luminous picture in its frame--
A great cathedral window, toward the sun
Lifted a form divine, which still below
Stretched hands of benediction;--while the air
Swayed the bright aureole of the flowing hair
Which lit our upturned faces;--even so
Look on us from the heavens, divinest One
And let us hear through the slow moving years.
Long centuries of wrongs, and crimes, and tears,--
The echo of the angel's song again,
Peace and good will, good will and peace to men,
A little space make silence,--that our ears,
Filled with the din of toil and moil and pain
May catch the jubilant rapture of the skies,--
The glories of the choirs of paradise.
The hills still tremble when the thunders cease
Of the loud diapason,--and again
Through the rapt stillness steals the hymn of peace;
Melodious and sweet its far refrain
Dying in distance, as the shadows die
Of white wings vanished up the morning sky,
As farther still--and thinner--more remote--
A film of sound, the aerial voices float--
Peace and good will, good will and peace to men!