Southwell: Christes returne out of Egipt

When death and hell their right in herode clayme
Christ from exile returnes to native soyle
There, with his life more deepely death to mayme
Then death did life by all the infantes spoyle
He shewd the parentes that their babes did mone [5]
That all their lives were lesse than his alone.

But hearing Herods sonne to have the crowne
An impious offspring of a bloodye syre
To Nazareth (of heaven beloved) towne,
Flower to a flowre he fittly doth retyre. [10]
For flowre he is and in a flower he bredd
And from a thorne now to a flowre he fledd.

And wel deservd this floure his fruite to vew
Where he invested was in mortall weede
Where first unto a tender budd he grewe [15]
In virgin branch unstaynd with mortall seede.
Younge flowre with flowres in flower well may he be
Ripe fruite he must with thornes hange on a tree.

Notes

 

The return from Egypt. JJ Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.

[Background]: Herod the Great (74-1BC) was king of Judea under Roman overlordship. Architectural achievements aside (such as rebuilding the Temple), his life was characterised by violence and cruelty. He is the one who ordered the massacre of the Holy Infants.  On his death, his son Herod Archelaus (23 BC - 18 AD) became ruler of Judea and was reputed to share his father's vicious ways ('an impious offspring of a bloody syre').

[19] But when Herod was dead, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph in Egypt, [20] Saying: Arise, and take the child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel. For they are dead that sought the life of the child.[21] Who arose, and took the child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. [22] But hearing that Archelaus reigned in Judea in the room of Herod his father, he was afraid to go thither: and being warned in sleep retired into the quarters of Galilee. [23] And coming he dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was said by prophets: That he shall be called a Nazarene.[Matthew 2]

[l2] native soyle: the land of Israel (as in verse 21 above). Presumably Bethlehem.

[ll3-4] life/death: Christ's life will overcome death, maiming death mortally through His own death and resurrection. The triumph of Christ's death completely obliterates the apparent victory of death over life and its 'spoyle' of the slaughtered Holy Innocents.  

[l4] spoyle: Goods, esp. such as are valuable, taken from an enemy or captured city in time of war; the possessions of which a defeated enemy is deprived or stripped by the victor; in more general sense, any goods, property, territory, etc., seized by force, acquired by confiscation, or obtained by similar means; booty, loot, plunder.
1582   N. Lichefield tr. F. L. de Castanheda 1st Bk. Hist. Discouerie E. Indias 163   With this spoyle the king of Calicut remained..ill contented.

[l5] mone: moan (with grief), mourn. He (Christ) showed (through His life) to the parents who were mourning the death of their babes...

[l7] Herods sonne: Archelaus.

Nazareth. JJ Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.

[l9] Nazareth (and flower imagery in following lines):

[23] And coming he dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was said by prophets: That he shall be called a Nazarene.[Matthew 2]

[1] And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.
[1] Et egredietur virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice ejus ascendet. [Isaiah 11]

In the time of St. Jerome, Nazareth was known as Nazara (in modern Arabic, en Nasirah). The Nazara derives from neser, which means 'a shoot'. The Latin Vulgate renders this word by flos, 'flower'.  Nazareth is accordingly the 'flower of Galilee'. The above Prophecy of Isaiah speaks of Christ's family tree in terms of a root, a shoot and a flower. He was descended from David (son of Jesse).

[l10] fittly: fitly - In a way that is fit; properly, aptly, becomingly, suitably, appropriately.
a1616   Shakespeare Coriolanus (1623) iv. ii. 36   Cats, that can iudge as fitly of his worth, As I can of those Mysteries. Christ is the flower who fittingly retires to Nazareth, the flower of Galilee.

[l11] in a flower he bredd: in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Rosa Mystica, Flos Carmeli.

[l12] from a thorne: the risk that Archelaus would shed His blood. This perhaps looks ahead to the Crown of Thorns and His Passion in l18. He flees to Nazareth, the flower of Galilee.

[ll12-16]: 'this floure' may refer to Nazareth (the antecedent in l12) or to Christ Himself.  In Nazareth, witness Christ came to fruition; it was here that He (a god) was clothed as a human (a mortal); where He grew from a babe, to a child, to a young man. His mother conceived Him sinlessly without the stain of human seed.

[ll17-18]: Christ lives with His family, growing up to manhood in Nazareth; but, as a man, He is destined to die nailed to a cross, wearing a crown of thorns.