Nativity

• Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
• Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment,
• There He hath made Himself to His intent
• Weak enough, now into the world to come;
• But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
• Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
• Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
• The effect of Herod’s jealous general doom.
• Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eyes, how He
• Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
• Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
• That would have need to be pitied by thee?
• Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
• With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.