Hand in Hand/Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve
ONE night there is in the whole year through,
When the cattle may speak as men can do.
Horses and oxen and donkeys stood,
A weary and suffering multitude.
Said the ox, "To-day I fell in the road,
My master helped me with whip and goad,"
And the horse, "With spurring my sides are red,
My master laughed at the wounds that bled!
"Surely the hearts of men do harden
Since Adam named us all in the garden."
Each had a tale of hurt to tell,
The blow, the curse, and the lash that fell,
Save the little ass, with the patient face,
Quietly munching there in his place.
No word had he of complaint to make,
Though every bone in his hide did ache.
A glorious light shone through the stall,
And Christ the Lord stood among them all.
There gleamed on His Hands, and Feet, and Side,
The Holy Wounds of the Crucified.
The beasts feared man, but they loved their God,
And bent glad heads to the earth He trod,
"Wailings swept over the glassy sea,
The cry of God's beasts came up to Me,
"Truly I know that your stripes be sore —
Have ye forgotten the stripes I bore?
"Yet it is written, ''Twixt birth and death
The whole of Creation travaileth.'
"These men do evil unwittingly.
Shall we not pity them—I and ye?"
And the dear Christ's eyes were filled with tears
As He touched the donkey's velvet ears,
And saw on the rope-galled, blow-scarred back,
The Sign of Redemption traced in black.
(Given because, on that Blessed Day,
When the Holy Babe in the manger lay,
The ass had knelt at the Christ Child's feet
While the ox and the horse did nought but eat).
"Creature of God, thy silent plaint
Is louder than psalm of sage or saint.
"Long since did I and a little ass
Into an earthly city pass.
"Thy work is prayer; and thou art of them
That shall enter the New Jerusalem!"