On the birth of Christ, our Lord
Suspended from a timber, breast transfixed,
and having both your temples pierced with thorns,
in ransom offering your mortal pain
for us, was surely a heroic deed.
But greater was to have been born so poor,
in such a place to make us understand
that where you came and whence you had begun
no porch for roof would have the slightest need.
A greater feat this was not, my great God,
of nature for having the chill offense
conquered in tender age with sturdy breast
(more great was sweating blood than being cold)
but greater since the span is more immense
from God to man to go, than man to death.
Translated by Alix Ingber
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