Classic Poem

Two thousand years agone within the manger
They laid the glorious Child, and through the sorrow
That clothed the world like air, and grew each morrow
Denser with vaporous wrongs, and horrors, stranger
Than all that went before, soft radiance, ranger
From realms above, floated, and strove to borrow
Heaven's fire to cleanse the many-centuried morrow
From deep corroding stains; and thou, dear changer
Of old for new lamps, slept; sweet infant slumber,
Which dreams of rescued souls fulfilled of lucence,
Whose slow-drawn breaths counted the whole world's risings
From depths of dull despair, whose smiles did number
Swift star-dawns on the world's night of recusance,
And bathed mankind in bliss of its comprisings.