This is the month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heaven’s Eternal King
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.
That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty
Wherewith He wont at Heaven’s high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and, here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
What I especially appreciate about these stanzas is that they quite clearly express both the reason for Christ's coming ("That he our deadly forfeit should release/And with His Father work us a perpetual peace") and the wonder of the Incarnation ("[He forsook] the courts of everlasting day/And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay"). Of course, there is also the magnificent language which seems so fitting to the sublimity of the event which it commemorates. Needless to say, for me, these lines are some of the finest in English poetry.
In conclusion, as we celebrate on this day the coming of the Incarnate Word, it is my hope that this excerpt from Milton's masterpiece will encourage us, like Mary, to "[treasure] up all these things and [ponder] them in [our hearts]" (see Luke 2:19).
Image: The Nativity by Jacob de Backer, from commons.wikimedia.org