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What dismal sound is this that rings through the streets of Bethlehem, where of late the Maiden-mother vainly sought a shelter?

It is the voice of weeping mothers, of others wailing for their children torn from their breasts and slain.

Soldiers, cruel messengers of a cruel king, seek them in every house, snatch them from mothers' arms, that fondly cling in vain, and spill with the sharp biting sword their red young blood beneath sky.

He whom they seek to slay is far off in the old Egyptian land.

These little ones die in His stead.

Herod would have slain the Lord of life