Before the First Coming

I feel myself to be a man disgraced walking nightlong and daylong beyond the paling of a garden lush with fountains and flowers,
waiting in vain for the great gate to open again and to admit me.

And I am tired with the remembrance only of the evil life I have lived to this day.

And I am downhearted because I am thwarted now when I wish to lie down under the foliage of the shadow of grace.

And the dumb beasts, the hens and the hares,
the pigeons and bats, wander freely in the bushes; the honey bees sing, and the snails,
after the rain, proceed in their Easter barouches.
Only I, by the paling, like a poacher or beggar expelled by the gardeners and the wicked servants come near to dying in the oppressive dampness of whole winter nights in the freezing north winds.

Nor can I flee again into the city of noise where I behold the embrace of evil opening for me with a warm welcome. For I am gripped with nausea at the sight of her only.

I cry out, I cry out by the threshold of the outer door,

I cry out like a false prophet, derided by all:

Open the church for me at least that I may go there where you suffer the stray tramps of the mountains.

But no mercy is heard for the entreating voice.
Punishment buffets me about like snowbeaten winter

like unbearable cold, with no fire, no bed,
no roof, no food, nor pity, nor forgiveness, and snowbound Christmas approaches.

The shepherds take down their flutes, dust off the church organs,

and the Magi watch the heavens daylong and nightlong

to find the star of the newly born Infant God.
A small ray of life and warmth like a glowworm behind a hedge in a dead midnight of vigilance reaches even to me. Can it be they will come for me also,

the angels, the village visitors, with their joyful caroling ?