The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The world to-day divides its year,
And gathers up its golden gear!
With cautious heart, and careful hands,
Takes in its rents, lets out its lands,
And strains its anxious eyes across
The last six months of gain or loss.

This day the world, with cunning arts,
Takes deeper hold on most men's hearts;
Some loss has sour'd them, or some gain
Ensnared them with its golden chain;
Some other day, Heav'n's purer bliss
Were easier thought on, than on this.

And yet what day in all the year
Should bring the upper world so near?
This — which commemorates the Love,
That left Its majesty above,
And stoop'd to be, as on this day,
The tenant of a ' house of clay.'

He, who ' was rich,' becoming ' poor,'
To give us riches, that endure;
He, who was high, becoming low,
That we might to His stature grow;
He, who was God, becoming man,
To save us by His wondrous plan.

This day He left His fair estate,
That from this day the Church might date
Her title deeds to that abode,
For her resign'd awhile by God,
That she — as His espoused bride —
Might there dwell with Him, side by side.

Then, when the world is full of self,
And counts its gains, and hoards its pelf,
And strives to grasp, with surest hold,
Its lands, its silver, and its gold;
Let our whole hearts this day be given
To their inheritance in Heaven.

O Saviour! Thou this day didst take
A human body, for our sake;
To share with us the griefs of life,
Its watchings, weariness, and strife;
All that belongs to man, but sin,
Thou didst this day Thyself begin.

In flesh Thou didst Thyself entomb,
Thou didst not hate ‘the Virgin's womb;'
Whole months in secret Thou didst lie,
"Waiting for Thy Nativity;
Not wearied by one hour, which can
Prove Thee more truly c very man.'

Some griefs Thou mightst have had the less,
If man's first days of helplessness,
With all the travail, toil, and tears,
That wait on childhood's tedious years,
Had been passed by; and Thou hadst come,
In perfect manhood, from Thy home.

But we had wanted much to prove
The depth, and oneness of Thy love,
The secret links of many a tie,
Whose all-prevailing sympathy,
(Which we could then have never known,)
Now makes us feel Thee all our own.

Saviour of infants! Thou didst rest,
Helpless, upon Thy mother's breast,
Saviour of children! Thou didst play
And grow beside her, day by day,
All human life to soothe and save,
Up from the cradle to the grave.

There's not an hour of life below,
A want, a weakness, or a woe,
In which — to help the human heart —
Thou hast not borne Thyself a part,
That we may draw our best relief
From Thy dear fellowship in grief.

Saviour! as low as Thou to me
Didst stoop, in Thy humility,
So high my nature lift with Thine,
Till human things become divine,
And Thy Eternal love once more
God's image to my soul restore.

And when I cling too close to earth,
Forgetful of my Heavenly birth,
And — for the love of its poor dross — -
Despise Thy crown, or shun Thy cross,
O let this festal clay reprove
Such wrong to Thine enduring love.