Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895.

Bethlehem

From the Roman Breviary

BETHLEHEM! of noblest cities

None can once with thee compare;

Thou alone the Lord from heaven

Didst for us Incarnate bear.

Fairer than the sun at morning

Was the star that told His birth;

To the lands their God announcing

Hid beneath a form of earth.

By its lambent beauty guided,

See the Eastern kings appear;

See them bend, their gifts to offer,—

Gifts of incense, gold and myrrh.

Solemn things of mystic meaning!

Incense doth the God disclose;

Gold a royal child proclaimeth,

Myrrh a future tomb foreshows.

Holy Jesu! in Thy brightness

To the Gentile world display’d!

With the Father, and the Spirit,

Praise eterne to Thee be paid.