A Christmas Faggot/Saint Joseph

by Alfred Gurney

S. JOSEPH.

A CLOISTERED garden was the place
     Where Mary grew, God's perfect flower;
One, only one, discerned her grace,
     And visited her bower.

God's choice was his; by love made strong
     To guard the Mother of the King;
No heart, save hers, had e'er a song
     So sweet as his to sing.

Yet lives there on the sacred page
     No record of a word from him:
God’s Ark he guards, a silent sage,
     Pure as the Cherubim.

But sweeter than the sweetest word
     Recorded of the wise and good,
His silence is a music heard
     On high, and understood.

Blessed are all who take their part
     Amid the carol-singing throng;
Thrice blest the meditative heart
     Whose silence is a song

Ballachulish: 1884