• Author: Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 6
• Page Number:
• Date: 12 25 1917
• Tags:
• poetry
• Christmas
• religion
• Christianity

Be Born Again By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Be born anew, dear Lord, be born again, Unto the hunger of the sons of men! Whose famine is too bitter to be fed By any lower food than sacred bread. We thirst for hope and, tasting, drink it not. We choke for joy denied a barren lot. We starve for love and, starving, throw the dice That may, or may not, pay love’s precious price. Our trembling hands, infirm, have lost the wit To grasp Thy holy cup. Lord, give us it! Fill it with strength despaired of by the weak.

Fill it with brimming rest the weary seek. Out of the chalice let the lonely drink. Restrain the wild soul crouching on the brink Of shameful purposes, that no man knows. Watch, Thou, the desert where the desperate goes! Unto white hearts give purity anew; And to the false the power to be true. Grant to the mourning, all uncomforted, The conscious coming of their dearest dead. Give to the friendless, shrinking and apart The happy throbbing of the Christmas heart.

Be born again, dear Christ! be born again, Unto the knowledge of the sons of men. Be born into the gentle heart that brings Its best, its strongest to the weakest things. Be born into the finest tenderness That will not burden, where it cannot bless; Be born in the divinest power to feel, That never hurts the nerve it cannot heal.