O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

O Come,O Come, and be our God-with-us,

O long-sought with-ness for a world without,

O secret seed, O hidden spring of light,

Come to us Wisdom,come unspoken Name,

Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,

O quickened little wick so tightly curled,

Be folded with us into time and place,

Unfold for us the mystery of grace

And make a womb of all this wounded world.

O heart of heaven beating in the earth,

O tiny hope within our hopelessness,

Come to be born, to bear us in our birth,

To touch a dying world with new made hands

And make those rags of time our swaddling bands.

by Malcolm Guite