Why winter night? On earthly nights

The dark resounds with exiles’ cries,

And faces stained lift up their sights

Toward stars in distant-seeming skies.

The stony ground will hardly bear

A living thing, while men spread round

False flashing panoply; the air

Pulses with their chaos of sound.

And yet tonight the stars feel near,

And hardened earth her bounty brings,

And many an oppresséd ear

Now hears the angels’ carolings.

“What means this show of light and scent?”

The world demands. “Why flowers and flames,

When all the dark, indifferent

Storms make our agony their games?”

“A Star has broken through the night!”

We answer back. “For Adam’s curse

Will shatter by an Infant’s might;

So shall we sing! Storms may grow worse,

And yet tonight the stars feel near,

And hardened earth her bounty brings,

And many an oppresséd ear

Now hears the angels’ carolings.”

O faces stained with streams of grief,

O eyes grown hot with stinging tears,

Look up! He comes, your sweet relief,

The great desire of all the years!

For battered souls, in lives like death,

Or lost in miry wastes of sin,

The sinless Maid of Nazareth

Tonight bears the Redeemer in.

Look up! tonight the stars feel near,

And hardened earth her bounty brings;

O listen, you oppresséd ear,

And hear the angels’ carolings!

From depths as hard as barren earth, as dark and cold as sea,

All drowning in the shadows I peer upward desperately.

I raise my voice, I raise my plea toward light-rich realms on high:

Out of the depths I call to Thee; O Lord God, hear my cry!

Thou reckon’st not our sinfulness, or we should surely fall;

Have pity then, and count not mine against me when I call;

For Thou art God most merciful, forgiving our offense,

Preferring that, for such a cause, we do Thee reverence.

I’ll hope in Thee, I’ll wait for Thee, however long I must;

Like weary watchmen in the dark I’ll look for Thee with trust;

I’ll gaze into the heavens black with faith’s unfailing eyes,

And know Thy light will yet return, sure as the sun will rise.

For Thou art God most merciful, most constant in Thy love,

Abounding in salvation greater than e’er dreamed we of.

Though miseries be vast and deep, yet is Thy mercy strong

To free and save Thy people from the burden of their wrong.