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