THE BURNING BABE
— Robert J. Southwell, S.J.

AS I in hoary winter’s night
Stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat
Which made my heart to glow,

And lifting up a fearful eye
To view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright
Did in the air appear;

Who, scorchèd with excessive heat,
Such floods of tears did shed,
As though His floods should quench His flames,
Which with His tears were fed:

‘Alas!’ quoth He, ‘but newly born
In fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts
Or feel my fire, but I!

‘My faultless breast the furnace is;
The fuel wounding thorns;
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke;
The ashes, shames and scorns;

The fuel Justice layeth on,
And Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought
Are men’s defilèd souls:

For which, as now on fire I am,
To work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath,
To wash them in my blood.’

With this He vanish’d out of sight
And swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I callèd unto mind
That it was Christmas Day.

[St. Robert Southwell, S.J. was drawn and quartered on Feb. 21, 1595, under the reign of Elizabeth I, for illicitly saying the Catholic Mass. He wrote “The Burning Babe” while imprisoned in the Tower of London.]

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