A Christmas Hymn

A stable-lamp is lighted
Whose glow shall wake the sky;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
And straw like gold shall shine;
A barn shall harbour heaven,
A stall become a shrine.
This Child through David's city
Shall ride in triumph by;
The palm shall strew its branches,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
Though heavy, dull and dumb,
And lie within the roadway
To pave His kingdom come.
Yet He shall be forsaken,
And yielded up to die;
The sky shall groan and darken,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
For stony hearts of men:
God's blood upon the spearhead,
God's love refused again.
But now, as at the ending,
The low is lifted high;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
In praises of the Child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled.

One thing I found by answering Richard Winslow's challenge was that if you write a hymn and you are serious about it, you have no business filling it with... with maverick notions of your own. A hymn has to be perfectly orthodox so that a congregation can stand up and... and belt it out with one voice, and that's an interesting constraint under which to work and, of course, a great... a great challenge. I'm glad to have met the challenge once. There are some, some people who, like Charles Wesley, who met it many times, and they have my admiration. Isaac Watts as well.