CHRISTMAS POEM 2026: ‘A BABE ON MANGER LIES’

“A manger floats on flowing sea                       “See a babe on manger lies

A baby’s there now please tell me.                   A different scene beholds our eyes.

How such a scene would come to be.   So normal that the baby cries

A gift to set his nation free                                 Yet angels pierce the starry skies.

A mother’s hand has placed him there           Who is this babe so meek and mild?

To keep him safe from murd’rous glare   They say He is a virgin’s child

And place him under regal care.           With many whispers strange and wild

In palace fine he learned to stand                     From heaven came to manger low

But soon expelled by guilty hand                      To climb a mount where none can go

To guide the Jews to distant land                    A place to drown in eerie woe

That hidden force whence history flows          You say this is God’s chosen man?

Soon etched his path of highs and lows           To heal the hearts of Moses’ clan

Up to a mount where no one goes    Fulfill at last God’s final plan

Had now he come to calling’s end?                   See him climb that shrouded place

A law to give that God would send                   No laws to give no words of grace

To sinful hearts in need of mend.                       His gift a mangled, tortured face

Thus he on water strangely born                         Then from this mount a curdling cry

Received a law one fateful morn                      ‘Why hides My God his loving eye

To find his efforts filled with scorn                     To leave me on this mount to die?’

That law from heaven divinely sent                    Where Moses failed now he would win

To guide mankind with good intent                   To liberate his human kin

Had struck on hearts severely bent                   His blood alone would conquer sin

See one in manger on the sea                         See him who on the manger lies

Who gave the law so faithfully                          Decreed to give the final prize

With tidings of death to you and me                Not with a law with precepts wise.

So failed his call so tragically”                       But a body which for all men dies”