Venice masks

Sunday 23 December 2018

The Angels, for the Nativitie of Our Lord - William Drummond of Hawthornden

Run, shepherds, run where Bethlem blest appears;
We bring the best of news, be not dismay’d,
A Saviour there is born, more old than years,
Amidst the rolling heaven this earth who stay’d:
In a poor cottage inn’d, a virgin maid,
A weakling did him bear who all upbears;
There he in clothes is wrapped, in manger laid,
To whom too narrow swaddlings are our spheres.
Run, shepherds, run, and solemnise his birth;
This is that night, no day, grown great with bliss,
In which the power of Satan broken is;
In heaven be glory; peace unto the earth.
Thus singing through the air the angels swam,
And all the stars re-echoed the same.

William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649) Scotland
Source: The Poets’ Bible: New Testament, third edition, edited by W. Garrett Horder. Ward, Lock & Bowden, 1895

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