Around this time last year, someone posted to uk.r.c. saying something like “Does anyone know any good carols for Epiphany”.

No one did, and I wondered about writing one. I made an attempt, and what came out wasn’t exactly a carol, but (since I’ve finally got around to writing a couple of lines that were giving me trouble) here it is, a year late.

Be assured that I am under no illusions as to the quality of the poetry, or indeed of the theology. I’m posting it here on the off-chance: someone might like it anyway…

From far across the world they came,

By light celestial from their country drawn,

To see the Son of God in human frame

And greet a new world’s dawn.

They saw no king on golden throne,

No learned sage with students standing by;

But in a humble shed of wood and stone

They heard a baby cry.

There, kneeling at the infant’s feet,

Their gifts they offered to the new-born King:

Gold for a monarch, incense for a priest,

And myrrh, for suffering.

But he is risen now, and sits

At God’s right hand, enthroned in power and light:

How can we offer gifts to him, who live

In this dark world of night?

He has not left us: here on earth,

Humble and poor, he lives among us still,

Born in a wooden shed, a pauper’s birth,

Freezing in winter’s chill.

He lives in all the poor, the weak,

The objects of our scorn and mirth:

The most despised of all the sons of men,

The Son of God on earth.

—

Gareth McCaughan