Page:Our American Holidays - Christmas.djvu/57

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A HYMN ON THE NATIVITY
29

Light on thy hills, Jerusalem!
   The Saviour now is born:
More bright on Bethlehem's joyous plains
   Breaks the first Christmas morn;
And brighter on Moriah's brow,
   Crowned with her temple-spires,
Which first proclaim the new-born light,
   Clothed with its Orient fires.

This day shall Christian lips be mute.
   And Christian hearts be cold?
Oh, catch the anthem that from heaveu
   O'er Judah's mountains rolled!
When nightly burst from seraph-harps
   The high and solemn lay,—
"Glory to God! on earth be peace;
   Salvation comes to-day!"



A HYMN ON THE NATIVITY OF MY SAVIOUR

BEN JONSON

I sing the birth was born to-night
The author both of life and light;
   The angels so did sound it.
And like the ravished shepherds said,
Who saw the light, and were afraid,
   Yet searched, and true they found it.