This poem by Richard Wilbur is worth recalling each time we come to Advent and Christmas...
- 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.
