Now Signs of Mourning Disappear

For Christmas and Circumcision

Words: Jam desinant suspiria. Matins Hymn from the Paris Breviary, by Charles Coffin.

Translation:  Alfred, Lord Braye, 1883.

Source: Orby Shipley, Annus Sanctus: Hymns of the Church for the Ecclesiastical Year. Vol. 1. (London and New York: Burns and Oates, 1884), p. 25-26.

Now signs of mourning disappear, 
God from on high doth deign to hear ; 
Comes through the gates of heaven wide 
The promised peace to man supplied. 

Lo, breaking in upon the night, 
The choir supernal meets our sight ; 
The tidings of their joyful lay 
Tell of the Saviours birth to-day. 

As press the little shepherd throng 
To hallowed cave the path along, 
Go we with them and kiss the shrine, 
The manger-wood they found for sign. 

What manner of a sight is this 
That opens on us for our bliss — 
Poor swaddling-clothes, the crib, the straw, 
Mother and Child so poor they saw ? 

Is this the Christ, the Son of God, 
Who in the eternal light abode ? 
little Infant, hushed and calm, 
Bear'st thou the worlds upon that palm ? 

E'en so, and faith can move afar 
The clouds that round thy being are ; 
1 know thee him whom angels see, 
Adoring thy divinity. 

Teaching in silence from that chair, 
Thou wouldst a doctrine new declare — 
All that the flesh desires, to shun ; 
To all it dreads, to boldly run. 

O nourisher of loves most pure, 
For human pride the sovereign cure j 
In these our hearts this Christmas-morn 
Deign, Child eternal, to be born. 

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