Mary great with heaven’s Child, gives birth,

not with women helping at her side

but where cats and sheep and cows abide

with the smells of hay and dung and earth.

In the fields the shivering shepherds watch

for wolves and other hungry predators

beneath the winter sky, quite out-of-doors

wishing night would warm another notch.

Then sky is filled with angels’ light and songs

the birth of God in Bethlehem to cheer.

Come to save us all, come now, come here;

to the simple poor the Child belongs.

To see the holy Child, bend low and enter in