Say, ye celestial
guards, who wait
In Bethlehem, round
the Saviour's palace gate,
Say, who are these
on golden wings,
That hover o'er the
new-born King of kings,
Their palms and
garlands telling plain
That they are of the
glorious martyr-train,
Next to yourselves
ordained to praise
His Name, and
brighten as on Him they gaze?
But where their
spoils and trophies? where
The glorious dint a
martyr's shield should bear?
How chance no cheek
among them wears
The deep-worn trace
of penitential tears,
But all is bright
and smiling love,
As if, fresh-borne
from Eden's happy grove,
They had flown here,
their King to see,
Nor ever had been
heirs of dark mortality?
Ask, and some angel
will reply,
"These, like
yourselves, were born to sin and die,
But ere the poison
root was grown,
God set His seal,
and marked them for His own.
Baptised its blood
for Jesus' sake,
Now underneath the
Cross their bed they make,
Not to be scared
from that sure rest
By frightened
mother's shriek, or warrior's waving crest."
Mindful of these,
the firstfruits sweet
Borne by this
suffering Church her Lord to greet;
Blessed Jesus ever
loved to trace
The "innocent
brightness" of an infant's face.
He raised them in
His holy arms,
He blessed them from
the world and all its harms:
Heirs though they
were of sin and shame,
He blessed them in
his own and in his Father's Name.
Then, as each fond
unconscious child
On the everlasting
Parent sweetly smiled
(Like infants
sporting on the shore,
That tremble not at
Ocean's boundless roar),
Were they not
present to Thy thought,
All souls, that in
their cradles Thou hast bought?
But chiefly these,
who died for Thee,
That Thou might'st
live for them a sadder death to see.
And next to these,
Thy gracious word
Was as a pledge of
benediction stored
For Christian
mothers, while they moan
Their treasured
hopes, just born, baptised, and gone.
Oh, joy for Rachel's
broken heart!
She and her babes
shall meet no more to part;
So dear to Christ
her pious haste
To trust them in His
arms for ever safe embraced.
She dares not grudge
to leave them there,
Where to behold them
was her heart's first prayer;
She dares not
grieve--but she must weep,
As her pale placid
martyr sinks to sleep,
Teaching so well and
silently
How at the
shepherd's call the lamb should die:
How happier far than
life the end
Of souls that
infant-like beneath their burthen bend.
It is easy to be so absorbed in the joy of Christmas to forget some of suffering and turmoil that was associated with the miracle of the Incarnation.
Childermas, or the Feast of the Holy Innocents, commemorates the massacre of all males under the age of two in Bethlehem ordered by Herod to preclude a rival king.
The Coventry Carol is a haunting hymn which mourns the loss of the first Christian martyrs in the form of a lullaby to the Holy Innocents.
