Who is the central figure in Milton's poem, On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity?

Christ is the central figure in Milton's poem, and although things happen to and around the infant Christ, he is not much of an actor in any of them. This aligns the poem with a Protestant tradition which, replacing earlier Catholic belief, understands the child Christ to be like a human infant: innocent and not conscious of the challenges of the world. This characterization is echoed in the poem when the speaker notes that sacred music cannot yet come to Earth – the child Christ is still in his "smiling Infancy," not in the suffering and death that will eventually characterize his life (151). Only then will he fully become the redeemed and divine Christ of the Christian tradition.