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Yet still they pause on the Contents
Of this amazing Story;
How he that fill'd the wide Extents
Of Uncreated Glory;
He whom the Heav'n of Heav'ns cou'd not contain;
Shou'd yet within the Sacred Maid's contracted Womb remain.

III

They see him born, and hear him weep,
To aggravate their Wonder;
Whose aweful Voice had shook the Deep,
And breath'd his Will in Thunder:
That aweful Voice, chang'd to an Infant's Cry;
Whilst in a feeble Woman's Arms he seem: constrain'd to lie.

IV

A God (Ah! where are Human Boasts?)
Extended in a Manger!
The Lord of all the Heav'nly Host,
Expos'd to Scorn and Danger!
The On'ly Blest, the All-sufficient weeps:
But O! who guides the stagg'ring World, while its Protector sleeps?

V

And canst thou, Man, ungrateful prove,
When 'twas for thy Salvation,
He left those splendid Seats Above,
His late bright Habitation,
Where all his Deity shone, without th' Allay
Of a Seraphic Vehicle, or deficated Clay.

VI

Where He transcendently possess'd
The Fullness of Perfection,
Tho' here benighted and oppress'd,
The Type of all Dejection.
He asks for Food, that gave the Ravens Bread,
And the Great Founder of the World wants where to lay his Head.

VII

But O! what dark Catastrophe
Does Hell at last conspire!
Behold! upon a cursed Tree
The Lord of Life expire:
From this, amaz'd, the Sun withdraws his Eye,
Afraid to see his Maker bleed, and the Eternal die.

VIII

The Seraphims who throng'd about,
'Twixt Hope and Consternation;
Now blaze the wond'rous News throughout
The radiant Corporation:
Who vainly strive the Mystery to scan,
And fathom the stupendous Depth of this Great Love to Man.

IX

He on the Rights of Justice stood,
With their exalted Nature,
That now thro' Streams of Sacred Blood
Wafts the Terrestrial Creature;
Wafts Dusty-Man to that Felicity,
Which the Apostate Sons of Light must never hope to see.