1 Again the Christmas board is spread,
Again we gather round;
And thanks too deep for words go up
To God without a sound.
2 Thanks for the common blessings first,
The commonest of all,
The daily bread, the manna sweet,
That never fails to fall.
3 The daily bread, the daily joy,
The greeting morn and eve,
The kiss of love, the kiss of peace,
Which daily we receive.
4 And if with all the joy He sends
Some grief is also there,
We praise Him still that He doth give
The patience that can bear.
5 Can bear, and through the bearing find
Within the hardest lot,
Some hidden grace which none may know
Save those who have it got.
6 But shall this merry time go past,
And thanks remain unsped
For Him who said so long ago,
I am the living Bread?
7 For Him, star-lit by Mary’s smile,
Whom simple shepherds found,
And wise men from the brooding East,
Where oxen stood around?
8 No wonder that they worshipped Him!
He was a baby sweet;
They had been foolish not to kneel
And kiss His rosy feet.
9 But little recked they as He lay
In such a lowly place,
That He should be the Man of men,
The captain of His race.
10 We differ when we speak of Him,
Our words are not the same,
But in our hearts there burns for aye,
One undivided flame.
11 Our words must differ, but our hearts
Still yield Him reverence due;
We love in spite of all our creeds;
Our love at least is true.
12 And if, above the starry skies,
He knows of what is here,
He knows there is a place for Him
At all our Christmas cheer.
Source: The Cyber Hymnal #15286
Chadwick, John White, was born at Marblehead, Mass., U.S., Oct. 19, 1840; graduated at the Cambridge Divinity School, July 19, 1864, and ordained minister of the Second Unitarian Church, Brooklyn, N.Y., Dec. 21, 1864. A frequent contributor to the Christian Examiner; The Radical; Old and New; Harper's Magazine; and has published many poems in American periodicals. His hymn on Unity, "Eternal Ruler of the ceaseless round," was written for the graduating class of the Divinity School, Cambridge, June 19, 1864. It is in Horder's Congregational Hymns, 1884. It is a hymn of superior merit. [Rev. W. Garrett Horder]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)… Go to person page >
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