Rain at Christmas

Just a bit of fancy that, literally, came down in a shower ..

It falls so grey and drear. The light is gone.
And greyness conquers with fixed misery
And all the world is shrunk to bear this weight
Of water falling on our finity.

The soil must be prepared. I know, I know,
Without the watering no life can be.
Yet how can blessing wear so bleak a form
As water falling on our finity.

And did it snow in Bethlehem long since,
Or was it just this unremitting rain
Leaching the joy from every traveller’s steps
And adding damp and cold to labour pain?

Huddle humanity beneath the fall
Of the bleak soaking blight of Adam’s curse,
Wearing the weight of all our fallenness
Until the day breaks and the clouds disperse.

Until the day breaks in the midnight clear
Not with the sun but angel-glory bright
Here is the rest which Adam’s children yearn
Here is our hope, His dawn, the Light of Light.

Therefore I wait in this occluded grey
Knowing His certain dawn shall shine on me
For unto us, (to me!) a child is born:
His blessing falls upon my finity.