Scripture Verse

When they were come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down, and worshipped Him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts: gold, and frankincense and myrrh. Matthew 2:11

Introduction

portrait
Mary R. Smith
1842–1927

Words: May R. Smith (1842–1927).

Music: St. Pe­ters­burg at­trib­ut­ed to Dmi­tri S. Bort­ni­an­sky, 1825 (🔊 pdf nwc).

If you know when this hymn was writ­ten, or where to get a good pho­to of Smith (head-and-shoul­ders, at least 200×300 pix­els), would you ?

portrait
Dmitri S. Bortniansky
1752–1825

Lyrics

The day the Christ child’s tender eyes
Unveiled their beauty on the earth,
God lit a new star in the skies
To flash the message of His birth;
And wise men read the glowing sign,
And came to greet the Child divine.

Low kneeling in the stable’s gloom,
Their precious treasures they unrolled;
The place was rich with sweet perfume;
Upon the floor lay gifts of gold.
And thus adoring they did bring
To Christ the earliest offering.

I think no nimbus wreathed the head
Of the young King so rudely throned;
The quilt of hay beneath Him spread
The sleepy kine beside Him owned;
And here and there in the torn thatch
The sky thrust in a starry patch.

Oh, when was new-born monarch shrined
Within such canopy as this?
The birds have cradles feather lined;
And for their new babes princesses
Have sheets of lace without a flaw,
His pillow was a wisp of straw!

He chose this way, it may have been,
That those poor mothers, everywhere,
Whose babies in the world’s great inn
Find scanty cradle-room and fare,
As did the Babe of Bethlehem,
May find somewhat to comfort them.