Milton: On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Monday, December 25, 2017
    CHRISTMAS DAY
Meditation:
    After [the Magi] had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.
    —Matthew 2:9-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven’s Eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
    That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious form, that Light insufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heaven’s high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity
He laid aside, and, here with us to be.
    Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the heaven, by the Sun’s team untrod,
    Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet!
Oh! run; present them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
    And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire,
From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.
    ... John Milton (1608-1674), [1629] from On the morning of Chist’s Nativity, The Complete Poems of John Milton, New York: P. F. Collier, 1909, p. 7 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 2:9-11; Isa. 9:6; Matt. 1:20-23; Luke 2:13-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are worthy of any gift I can give You.

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