Processional Poem by Francis Joseph Sherman

Stand aside and let him pass
Over this untrodden grass.
Keep ye to the broken ground.

Let the drums and trumpets sound,
Let the colors be unwound


Till they float out on the wind.

Let him all things fairer find
Than all things that lie behind,—
Than he dreamed that they could be.

Let him wonder at the sea


Sweeping outward, glad and free,
At the mountains and the skies.

Let him know that God is wise
When he sees the sun arise
Where the hills are cleft in two.



When a bird from out the blue
Sings its faultless message through,
He shall laugh and understand

That the hollow of God’s hand
Holdeth him and all the land.


—Let your trumpets tell his birth

Unto all the waiting earth.
Yea, he cometh, O the worth
Life outholdeth. Let them sound,

Let your pennons be unwound


Ye upon the broken ground.
Stand aside and let him pass.