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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=537890" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Nativity</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis folly all--let me no more be told<br>Of Parian porticos, and roofs of gold;<br>Delightful views of nature, dressed by art,<br>Enchant no longer this indifferent heart;<br>The Lord of all things, in his humble birth,<br>Makes mean the proud magnificence of earth;<br>The straw, the manger, and the mouldering wall,<br>Eclipse its lustre; and I scorn it all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Canals, and fountains, and delicious vales,<br>Green slopes and plains, whose plenty never fails;<br>Deep–rooted groves, whose heads sublimely rise,<br>Earth–born, and yet ambitious of the skies;<br>The abundant foliage of whose gloomy shades,<br>Vainly the sun in all its power invades;<br>Where warbled airs of sprightly birds resound,<br>Whose verdure lives while Winter scowls around;<br>Rocks, lofty mountains, caverns dark and deep,<br>And torrents raving down the rugged steep;<br>Smooth downs, whose fragrant herbs the spirits cheer;<br>Meads crowned with flowers; streams musical and clear,<br>Whose silver waters, and whose murmurs, join<br>Their artless charms, to make the scene divine;<br>The fruitful vineyard, and the furrowed plain,<br>That seems a rolling sea of golden grain:<br>All, all have lost the charms they once possessed;<br>An infant God reigns sovereign in my breast;<br>From Bethlehem's bosom I no more will rove;<br>There dwells the Saviour, and there rests my love.<br>Ye mightier rivers, that, with sounding force,<br>Urge down the valleys your impetuous course!<br>Winds clouds, and lightnings! and, ye waves, whose heads,<br>Curled into monstrous forms, the seaman dreads!<br>Horrid abyss, where all experience fails,<br>Spread with the wreck of planks and shattered sails;<br>On whose broad back grim Death triumphant rides,<br>While havoc floats on all thy swelling tides,<br>Thy shores a scene of ruin strewed around<br>With vessels bulged, and bodies of the drowned!<br>Ye fish, that sport beneath the boundless waves,<br>And rest, secure from man, in rocky caves;<br>Swift–darting sharks, and whales of hideous size,<br>Whom all the aquatic world with terror eyes!<br>Had I but faith immoveable and true,<br>I might defy the fiercest storm, like you:<br>The world, a more disturbed and boisterous sea,<br>When Jesus shows a smile, affrights not me;<br>He hides me, and in vain the billows roar,<br>Break harmless at my feet, and leave the shore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thou azure vault where, through the gloom of night,<br>Thick sown, we see such countless worlds of light!<br>Thou moon, whose car, encompassing the skies,<br>Restores lost nature to our wondering eyes;<br>Again retiring, when the brighter sun<br>Begins the course he seems in haste to run!<br>Behold him where he shines! His rapid rays,<br>Themselves unmeasured, measure all our days;<br>Nothing impedes the race he would pursue,<br>Nothing escapes his penetrating view,<br>A thousand lands confess his quickening heat,<br>And all he cheers are fruitful, fair, and sweet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Far from enjoying what these scenes disclose,<br>I feel the thorn, alas! but miss the rose:<br>Too well I know this aching heart requires<br>More solid gold to fill its vast desires;<br>In vain they represent his matchless might,<br>Who called them out of deep primeval night;<br>Their form and beauty but augment my woe,<br>I seek the Giver of those charms they show:<br>Nor, Him beside, throughout the world he made,<br>Lives there in whom I trust for cure or aid.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Infinite God, thou great unrivalled One!<br>Whose glory makes a blot of yonder sun;<br>Compared with thine, how dim his beauty seems,<br>How quenched the radiance of his golden beams!<br>Thou art my bliss, the light by which I move;<br>In thee alone dwells all that I can love.<br>All darkness flies when thou art pleased to appear,<br>A sudden spring renews the fading year;<br>Where'er I turn I see thy power and grace<br>The watchful guardians of our heedless race;<br>Thy various creatures in one strain agree,<br>All, in all times and places, speak of thee;<br>E'en I, with trembling heart and stammering tongue,<br>Attempt thy praise, and join the general song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Almighty Former of this wondrous plan,<br>Faintly reflected in thine image, man--<br>Holy and just—the greatness of whose name<br>Fills and supports this universal frame,<br>Diffused throughout the infinitude of space,<br>Who art thyself thine own vast dwelling–place;<br>Soul of our soul, whom yet no sense of ours<br>Discerns, eluding our most active powers;<br>Encircling shades attend thine awful throne,<br>That veil thy face, and keep thee still unknown;<br>Unknown, though dwelling in our inmost part,<br>Lord of the thoughts, and Sovereign of the heart!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Repeat the charming truth that never tires,<br>No God is like the God my soul desires;<br>He at whose voice heaven trembles, even He,<br>Great as he is, knows how to stoop to me--<br>Lo! there he lies—that smiling infant said,<br>'Heaven, earth, and sea, exist!'--and they obeyed.<br>E'en he, whose being swells beyond the skies,<br>Is born of woman, lives, and mourns, and dies;<br>Eternal and immortal, seems to cast<br>That glory from his brows, and breathes his last.<br>Trivial and vain the works that man has wrought,<br>How do they shrink and vanish at the thought!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sweet solitude, and scene of my repose!<br>This rustic sight assuages all my woes—<br>That crib contains the Lord, whom I adore;<br>And earth's a shade that I pursue no more.<br>He is my firm support, my rock, my tower,<br>I dwell secure beneath his sheltering power,<br>And hold this mean retreat for ever dear,<br>For all I love, my soul's delight is here.<br>I see the Almighty swathed in infant bands,<br>Tied helpless down the thunder–bearer's hands!<br>And, in this shed, that mystery discern,<br>Which faith and love, and they alone, can learn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ye tempests, spare the slumbers of your Lord!<br>Ye zephyrs, all your whispered sweets afford!<br>Confess the God, that guides the rolling year;<br>Heaven, do him homage; and thou, earth, revere!<br>Ye shepherds, monarchs, sages, hither bring<br>Your hearts an offering, and adore your King!<br>Pure be those hearts, and rich in faith and love;<br>Join, in his praise, the harmonious world above;<br>To Bethlehem haste, rejoice in his repose,<br>And praise him there for all that he bestows!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Man, busy man, alas! can ill afford<br>To obey the summons, and attend the Lord;<br>Perverted reason revels and runs wild,<br>By glittering shows of pomp and wealth beguiled;<br>And, blind to genuine excellence and grace,<br>Finds not her author in so mean a place.<br>Ye unbelieving! learn a wiser part,<br>Distrust your erring sense, and search your heart;<br>There soon ye shall perceive a kindling flame<br>Glow for that infant God, from whom it came;<br>Resist not, quench not, that divine desire,<br>Melt all your adamant in heavenly fire!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not so will I requite thee, gentle love!<br>Yielding and soft this heart shall ever prove;<br>And every heart beneath thy power should fall,<br>Glad to submit, could mine contain them all.<br>But I am poor, oblation I have none,<br>None for a Saviour, but himself alone:<br>Whate'er I render thee, from thee it came:<br>And, if I give my body to the flame,<br>My patience, love, and energy divine<br>Of heart, and soul, and spirit, all are thine.<br>Ah, vain attempt to expunge the mighty score!<br>The more I pay, I owe thee still the more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Upon my meanness, poverty, and guilt,<br>The trophy of thy glory shall be built;<br>My self–disdain shall be the unshaken base,<br>And my deformity its fairest grace;<br>For destitute of good, and rich in ill,<br>Must be my state and my description still.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And do I grieve at such an humbling lot?<br>Nay, but I cherish and enjoy the thought—<br>Vain pageantry and pomp of earth, adieu!<br>I have no wish, no memory for you;<br>The more I feel my misery, I adore<br>The sacred inmate of my soul the more;<br>Rich in his love, I feel my noblest pride<br>Spring from the sense of having nought beside.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In thee I find wealth, comfort, virtue, might;<br>My wanderings prove thy wisdom infinite;<br>All that I have I give thee; and then see<br>All contrarieties unite in thee;<br>For thou hast joined them, taking up our woe,<br>And pouring out thy bliss on worms below,<br>By filling with thy grace and love divine<br>A gulf of evil in this heart of mine.<br>This is, indeed, to bid the valleys rise,<br>And the hills sink—'tis matching earth and skies;<br>I feel my weakness, thank thee and deplore<br>An aching heart, that throbs to thank thee more;<br>The more I love thee, I the more reprove<br>A soul so lifeless, and so slow to love;<br>Till, on a deluge of thy mercy tossed,<br>I plunge into that sea, and there am lost.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Cowper">William Cowper</a><div class=q>
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Of Parian porticos, and roofs of gold;
Delightful views of nature, dressed by art,
Enchant no longer this indifferent heart;
The Lord of all things, in his humble birth,
Makes mean the proud magnificence of e..."></div>
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