John Seleden’s
The Nativity Poem
Kurt Simmons
Did Mary travail, was our Lord born,
While yet it was night, before it was morn?
Whilst shepherds flocks watched, but other men
slept,
This day that men long centuries have kept?
Do we well the Lord’s birth to remember,
Year by year the twenty-fifth of December?
Fear not, good Christian men, be not afraid,
It was surely this night when it was said,
“Unto the sons of earth is born this day,
He whom prophets foretold and saints did pray.
And, lo, this a sign unto you shall be,
The babe in a manger in David’s city.”
The truth of this day may surely be known,
From what the Jewish historian hath shown.
About the time of our dear Savior’s birth,
When the Roman people governed the earth,
And
Wrongly informed that king Herod was dead,
Fanatical Jews took it into their head,
The Roman eagle to take from its place,
Thought thus to remove their nation’s disgrace.
Their duty to God they thought it to be
To remove the offending effigy.
For casting the eagle onto the ground,
King Herod had the rebel’s seized and bound.
Some into prison cast, others reserved,
For greater crimes, greater punishment deserve.
Since in the king’s death they took great delight,
He burned them alive and repaid them with spite.
The night he slew the condemned rabbis,
A lunar eclipse occurred in the skies.
A celestial sign in 1 B.C.
Appeared in heaven for all men to see.
January tenth this portent was sent
A heavenly sign to mark the event
Meantime the holy family doth wait,
Burnt offering to lay on altar grate.
The law imposed forty days’ quarantine
Before new mothers were ritually clean.
For their cleansing, sacrifice they must make,
Unto the temple their offering take.
Mary’s time fulfilled, her gifts presented,
Her prayers for the Babe by angels attended,
Are carried to God with incense scented.
Her sacrifice made, they return home
To
A few weeks more and the Magi appear,
By a star they are led and thus draw near.
They’re warned to return home another way,
For Herod will seek the child to slay.
To
Mother and child escape in the night.
Warned not to return ‘till Herod is dead,
Joseph obeys what the angel has said.
A few months pass, Herod’s health fast declines
‘Neath the weight of his sins his body repines.
Word then arrives from Augustus Caesar
That king Herod may slay Antipater.
Who, although he’s the king’s favorite son,
Lay bound in prison for treason he’d done.
To poison his father and seize his throne,
Antipater with his life must atone.
Herod relents, his life he would spare,
To slay his own son, what father would dare?
Then rumor breaks out that the king is deceased,
Antipater offers bribes to be released.
The jailer brings word to the ailing king,
Declaiming a son that would do such a thing.
The king in a rage orders his head sent,
Blood begat blood for Herod the tyrant.
He joins his son’s death to multitudes more,
Mothers cry out and God’s vengeance implore.
To protect his throne, earth with blood watered,
To
Caesar chides “Herod’s pig ‘tis better be,
Than Herod’s son or his near family.”
Herod survived his son only five days,
Then to judgment went for his evil ways.
A few weeks more and Passover comes roun’,
Archelaus doth don his father’s gold crown.
In
To
They go to Nazareth of Galilee
Where Jesus abides till his ministry.
For though the serpent himself is now dead,
One of his brood doth reign in his stead.
From this account we are able to see
The succession of events in history;
And to assign chronologically,
Proper place to the Lord’s nativity.
Reckoning aright Christ’s birth will occur
'Bout winter solstice in late December.
Did Mary travail, was our Lord born,
While yet it was night, before it was morn?
Whilst shepherds flocks watched, but other men
slept,
This day that men long centuries have kept?
Do we well the Lord’s birth to remember,
Year by year the twenty-fifth of December?
Fear not, good Christian men, be not afraid,
It was surely this night when it was said,
“Unto the sons of earth is born this day,
He whom prophets foretold and saints did pray.
And, lo, this a sign unto you shall be,
The babe in a manger in David’s city.”
The truth of this day may further be known
For St. Luke in his gospel there hath shown
His thirtieth year it was the threshold,
When to be baptized Lord Jesus made bold,
Three years and a half ere shedding his blood,
The Savior was covered ‘neath
Forty-two months before
The Lord was buried in watery fashion;
To the Baptist came in early November,
Forty-odd days before the twenty-fifth of
December.
A forty-day fast He then undertook,
Himself to prepare, food and water forsook.
Then by the devil he was tempted sore
The lusts of the flesh about seven days more.
Thus to his birthday at length does he come
When the Master his ministry begun
For thirty years Jewish men must attain
Before the office of Rabbi maintain
The years of manhood they must acquire
If to be a teacher they do aspire.
He returns to John, his first disciples to
make;
Phillip and Andrew from the Baptist doth take.
Phillip findeth Nathaniel and bringeth him
too,
Peter, destined to be chief, is brought by
Andrew.
They call him “Rabbi”, by which we may see
That Jesus hath already turned thirty.
They go to
The miracle marked by Epiphany.
January sixth this feast e’er hath been
From which observance it may be seen:
His birthday following hard on his fast
Not sixty days from the Lord’s baptism elapsed
Until the feast of Epiphany hath past.
And within this narrow frame of time
Occurs the Nativity of thy Lord and mine.
Did Mary travail, was our Lord born
While yet it was night, before it was morn?
Whilst shepherds flocks watched, but other men
slept,
This day that men long centuries have kept?
Do we well the Lord’s birth to remember
Year by year the twenty-fifth of December?
Fear not, good Christian men, be not afraid
It was surely this night when it was said,
“Unto the sons of earth is born this day,
He whom prophets foretold and saints did pray.
And, lo, this a sign unto you shall be,
The babe in a manger in David’s city.”
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Adoration of the Shepherds
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