Scribner's Magazine/Volume 37/Number 1/Bearer of Glad Tidings
“Unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of
Righteousness arise with healing in his wings”
Eastward of that awed island mm mid-sea That of all earth first sees the sunrise born, "The slow, sweet smile of the awakening morn Spreads on the heaven's remote gray mystery. Immovable the stately palms out-lean To watch her fingers grope toward the West, Her jewelled feet stepping from crest to crest Of the wind-winnowed wilderness of green!
Only the breakers, with low-whispering lips, Stir the expectant silence of the world. Briefly the standards of the clouds, unfurled By the roused winds, blaze red where ocean dips: Then, of a sudden, on the thin, far air A myriad sword-blades of white light, as one, Flash forth in loyal greeting, and the Sun Steps to the sheer horizon’s final stair!
Glory recalling greater Glory’s rise! O mute majestic monarch of this day Than all days holier; on thy circling way What tears shall not be wiped from mortal eyes! What unimagined kindness not be done By man to man beneath the illumined arch! What benedictions shall not mark thy march Around a world redeemed, O Christmas Sun!
Haloed with tidings of a Saviour’s birth, Bearing His peace and pardon in her hands, "Across the thresholds of successive lands Morn feels her way around the darkened earth: And, as her splendors gradually span Reiterated orients with rose, Where’er night’s curtains at her touch unclose God lays His lips against the lips of man!
The drowsy East, drugged to unmeaning dreams, Stirs in her sleep, uncomprehending still The crescent light, that on the dawn-gilt hill With the new gospel eloquently gleams: And the sun passes with reluctant tread Or these blind lands, and on their gardens lays Half fearfully, his long, regretful rays,Like the warm hands of those that touch their dead.
On Europe as the dawn grows into day, Cathedral towers thrill to their whirling bells, Beneath each vaulted arch an anthem swells, And incense turns the sun-shot gloom to gray: While, the shrill clamor of their creeds above, Land speaks to land, and cities each to each, And in the cadence of that calmer speech Beats the soft impulse of fraternal love!
From ship to ship, across the ocean’ breast, The breath of this memorial morning blows, The gladdening gospel, still unwearied, goes On to the princely peoples of the West: And the republics turn their clear young eyes, With reverence aglow, toward a morn That sees at each new step new homage born, And ever hears new anthems skyward rise.
O Christmas Sun! What holy task is thine’ To fold a world in the embrace of God! To spread, where’er thy golden feet have trod, The benediction of His grace divine: To hold the promise of His final plan Blazing before the eves of human-kind, And, at thy setting, leave His love enshrined Anew in the reminded heart of man!
Blind we have been, and blind must ever be, No more foreseeing His eternal good Than that remote, mid-ocean island could Guess noon from dawn’s faint flush across the sea:— And vet our Christmas suns successive smile! Some day, mayhap, the workings of His hand The wisest may begin to understandO patient God, be patient vet awhile!