Poem December 24, 1932 Issue

"Unto us a child is born"

LUCIA C. COULSON

Silence in heaven and on earth;
Silence so filled with light,
So pregnant with deep meanings
That the hymn of morning stars
Held no comparison.
Lo, in that stillness came
The babe, the Bethlehem babe!
All nature held her peace.
The wild winds stilled.
All mortal seeming hushed,
No fierce thought stirred.
The harmlessness of being lay revealed.

Silence within the heart.
Self stilled at last—
The mortal self—
Its trappings loosed and gone,
All undesired, sordid, and laid aside.
Then like a sudden flame
From heaven's vault came the light!
The Christ-idea is born,
Bright, undefiled;
Immortal selfhood known,
Embraced and claimed.
All clamor mute before the shining bliss.