by Coleridge · Cluster: Grace and Redemption · Humility · Bread and Wine Eucharist
Abstract
Devotional poem on Christmas Day with Coleridge’s substituted lines, addressing the sun and the birth of Christ as a ‘primal great lucific light’ that gives sight to souls; Nativity hymn on light and incarnation.
Connections
Motifs: Light and Dark, Sun Themes & Concepts: Grace and Redemption, Faith Forms & Genres: Hymn Historical References: Christianity Characters: Christ
Testo integrale / Full text
THE NATIVITY OR CHRISTMAS DAY.
Unfold thy face, unmask thy ray,
Shine forth, bright sun, double the day;
Let no malignant misty fume
Nor foggy vapour, once presume
To interpose thy perfect sights, 5
This day which makes us use thy lights
For ever better that we could
That blessed object once behold,
Which is both the circumference
And centre of all excellence, &c. 10
Substitute the following for the fifth to the eighth line.
To sheath or blunt one happy ray,
That wins new splendour from the day, —
This day that gives thee power to rise,
And shine on hearts as well as eyes:
This birth-day of all souls, when first
On eyes of flesh and blood did burst
That primal great lucific light,
That rays to thee, to us gave sight.
[S. T. C.]
First published in ‘Notes on Harvey’s Synagogue’, Notes and Lectures,
&c., 1849, ii. 263. Now first collected.
Coleridge’s notes to The Synagogue, including these original lines,
were reprinted in the notes to The Complete Poems of Christopher
Harvey, 1874, p. 47.