A Christmas Hymn

A stable-lamp is lighted

  Whose glow shall wake the sky;

    The stars shall bend their voices,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry,

  And straw like gold shall shine;

    A barn shall harbor heaven,

A stall become a shrine.

This child through David’s city

  Shall ride in triumph by;

    The palm shall strew its branches,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry,

  Though heavy, dull, and dumb,

    And lie within the roadway

To pave His kingdom come.

Yet He shall be forsaken,

  And yielded up to die;

    The sky shall groan and darken,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry

  For stony hearts of men:

    God’s blood upon the spearhead,

God’s love refused again.

But now, as at the ending,

  The low is lifted high;

    The stars shall bend their voices,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry

  In praises of the child

    By whose descent among us

The worlds are reconciled.

~Richard Wilbur