Child of the stable's secret birth, the Lord by right of the lords of earth, let angels sing of a King newborn, the world is weaving a crown of thorn: a crown of thorn for that infant head cradled soft in the manger bed. Eyes that shine in the lantern's ray; a face so small in its nest of hay, face of a child who is born to scan the world he made through the eyes of man: and from that face in the final day earth and heaven shall flee away. Voice that rang through the courts on high, contracted now to a wordless cry, a voice to master the wind and wave, the human heart and the hungry grave: the voice of God through the cedar trees rolling forth as the sound of seas. Infant hands in a mother's hand, for none but Mary may understand whose are the hands and the fingers curled but his who fashioned and made the world; and through these hands in the hour of death nails shall strike to the wood beneath. Child of the stable's secret birth, the Father's gift to a wayward earth, to drain the cup in a few short years of all our sorrows , our sins, and tears-- ours the prize for the road he trod: risen with Christ; at peace with God.