The Burning Babe

Robert Southwell

About the Author: A native of Norfolk, England, Robert Southwell (c. 1561–1595) went to the continent to join the Society of Jesus and was ordained to the priesthood in 1584. In 1586 he returned to England as a secret missionary priest and spent six years ministering to English Catholics in secret. He was arrested in 1592, imprisoned, and tortured, before being sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason against Queen Elizabeth I. While standing under the gibbet, Robert professed that he was a Jesuit priest and prayed for his queen and his country. He was canonised with 39 other English martyrs in 1970.

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As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,
Surpris’d 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, scorched 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 shame and scorns;

The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled 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 called unto mind that it was Christmas day.