Classic Poem

When God was born in Bethlehem
He drank the milk of man.
And Mary asking “Is it fit?”
He bowed and clung and whispered it
“Mother, I say a dreadful thing
Save for my strange and swift coming
At last, even mortal mothers would
Have wearied of all motherhood,
When the babe was but a span.”

When God was gone through Galilee,
The water turned to wine,
They questioned of the crimson freak,
He said, “Because all wine grows weak,
Yea, man grows colder than a cow,
They turn the wine to water now.
Alone I lift the feasting face,
For Bacchus, on the hills of Thrace,
Is weary of the vine.”

When God was in Jerusalem,
The wine was turned to blood.
They wept. He said “Without this strife
Death had grown even as dull as life.
The sages stare and can but spy
Blue devils in the good blue sky,
But only God in agony
Can look on all good things that be,
And see that they are good.”

Then do we bid a blessing down
On milk and blood and wine.
All huge and humble things we bless,
For man's great thought is grown a guess,
And woman's smile is grown a snare,
And power is in the creeds of fear,
And praise is on the thrones of theft,
And there are no things human left,
But those He made divine.