How has the shrine of wisdom and manger

Become a nightmare of fear and danger?

Lives tossed aside, like unwanted presents,

Of factory workers and toiling peasants?

How has Christmas, day of celebration,

Been transformed into a desecration,

Where the rocket, mortar, the flag and fist

Are the only currencies which subsist,

And the welcome afforded to a guest

Is replaced by suspicion and arrest?

The warm glow and the pride of infant birth

Once served as an example to this Earth;

Now chill of winter penetrates the straw,

And the barrels of a gun serve as law.