XIII
Christmas Day 1658
What! The messias born, and shall a day
Be thought too much expensiveness to pay
To thy memorial; shall an Anniverse
Be keept with ostentation to rehearse
A mortal princes birth-day, or defeat
An Eighty Eight1 , or powder plots2 defeat
A Purim3 ; or some petty victory,
Thoughts with the Victors loss or Infamy;
And shall we venture to exterminate,
And starve at once the memory and date
Of Christ incarnate, wherein such a store
Of Joy to mortals lay, as ne’er before
The sun beheld a Treasury of Bliss;
The birth-day of the world as well as his;
Ingrateful man; It was for only thee
And for thy Restitution, that he
Did stoop to wear thy raggs, chose a descent
Below himself and Angels, was content
Thus to assume thy nature, and thereby
His passing Love to thee to magnifie
And canst thou thus require it, to deface
This days inscription of it, or to raze
The name it bears, that future ages may
forget as well the blessing, as the day
Dear Lord, when to thy Honour I design
To give a Day, ‘twas what before was thine
But were it mine, I only pay a debt
To the remembrance of this beniefit.
Footnotes
1 1588 Back to text.
2 Gunpowder plot; 1605. A failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of Scotland by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. Back to text.
3 A lesser Jewish festival held in Spring, on the 14th or 15th day of Adar to commemorate the defeat of Haman’s plot to destroy the Jews as recorded in the book of Esther. Back to text.
Heather Ross
Oklahoma State University