And a dolly's soft bed,
With a night-gown and bed-clothes of pretty bright stuffs,
And paints, and a case
Where my books I may place,
And besides all these things, Dolly's collars and cuffs."
That's a pretty big list!
But may I be kissed
On the back of my head by a crazy mule's hoof,
If the list I don't fill,
Though it takes all the skill
Of every stout workman beneath my broad roof.
"Hans, Yakob, and Karl!
Let me not hear a snarl,
Or a growl, or a grumble come out of your heads;
To work now, instanter!
Trot, gallop, and canter,
And finish this job ere you go to your beds!"
So I set them to work
With a jump and a jerk,
And everything's finished in beautiful style.
Christmas Eve's here again,
And I'm off with my train,
Every reindeer prepared for ten seconds a mile.
I shall slip down the flue
With this letter for you,
So softly, for fear I your slumbers might break.
Not a word will I speak,
But I'll kiss your soft cheek,
And be gone in a jiffy, before you awake.
Should you find I've forgot
Any part of the lot
That I ordered prepared and all marked with your name,
Let me just add a word,
So if that has occurred,
You will know just exactly how I was to blame.
The fact is, my dear,
As I go, year by year,
Up and down these straight chimneys, while you are in bed,
The bumps and the scratches
That Santa Claus catches
Have rubbed all the hair from the top of his head.
And my brain being bare
Of my cover of hair,
Is rapidly losing its power, my pet!
Sometimes, after all's fixed,
I get everything mixed,
And you must forgive if I ever forget.
Good-by, Ethel dear!
May the coming New Year
Bring all kinds of blessings to you from above;
Make you happier and better:
And so my long letter
Must close, with a great deal of Santa Claus's love.
_Francis Wells._
_The Season's Reveries._
"How many times have you sat at gaze
Till the mouldering fire forgot to blaze,
Shaping among the whimsical coals
Fancies and figures and shining goals!"
_Lowell._
GUESTS AT YULE.
_Noel! Noel!_
Thus sounds each Christmas bell
Across the winter snow.
But what are the little footprints all
That mark the path from the churchyard wall?
They are those of the children waked to-night
From sleep by the Christmas bells and light:
Ring sweetly, chimes! Soft, soft, my rhymes!
Their beds are under the snow.
_Noel! Noel!_
Carols each Christmas bell.
What are the wraiths of mist
That gather anear the window-pane
Where the winter frost all day has lain?
They are soulless elves, who fain would peer
Within and laugh at our Christmas cheer:
Ring fleetly, chimes! Swift, swift, my rhymes!
They are made of the mocking mist.
_Noel! Noel!_
Cease, cease, each Christmas bell!
Under the holly bough,
Where the happy children throng and shout,
What shadow seems to flit about?
Is it the mother, then, who died
Ere the greens were sere last Christmas-tide?
Hush, falling chimes! Cease, cease, my rhymes!
The guests are gathered now.
_Edmund Clarence Stedman._
CHRISTMAS IN INDIA.
Dim dawn the tamarisks--the sky is saffron-yellow--
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow
That the day, the staring eastern day, is born.
Oh, the white dust on the highway! Oh, the stenches in the by-way!
Oh, the clammy fog that hovers over earth!
And at home they're making merry 'neath the white and scarlet berry--
What part have India's exiles in their mirth?
Full day behind the tamarisks--the sky is blue and staring--
As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke,
And they bear one o'er the field-path who is past all hope or caring,
To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke.
Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly--
Call on Rama--he may hear, perhaps, your voice!
With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars,
And to-day we bid "good Christian men rejoice!"
High noon above the tamarisks--the sun is hot above us--
As at home the Christmas Day is breaking wan,
They will drink our healths at dinner--those who tell us how they
love us,
And forget us till another year be gone!
Oh, the toil that knows no breaking! Oh! the heimweh, ceaseless,
aching!
Oh, the black, dividing sea and alien plain!
Youth was cheap--wherefore we sold it. Gold was good--we hoped to
hold it,
And to-day we know the fulness of our gain.
Gray dusk behind the tamarisks--the parrots fly together--
As the sun is sinking slowly over home;
And his last ray seems to mock us, shackled in a lifelong tether
That drags us back, howe'er so far we roam.
Hard her service, poor her payment--she in ancient, tattered raiment--
India, she the grim stepmother of our kind.
If a year of life be lent her, if her temple's shrine we enter,
The door is shut--we may not look behind.
Black night behind the tamarisks--the owls begin their chorus--
As the conches from the temple scream and bray.
With the fruitless years behind us and the hopeless years before us,
Let us honor, O, my brothers, Christmas Day!
Call a truce, then, to our labors--let us feast with friends and
neighbors,
And be merry as the custom of our caste;
For, if "faint and forced the laughter," and if sadness follow after,
We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.
_Rudyard Kipling._
CHRISTMAS VIOLETS.
Last night I found the violets
You sent me once across the sea;
From gardens that the winter frets,
In summer lands they came to me.
Still fragrant of the English earth,
Still humid from the frozen dew,
To me they spoke of Christmas mirth,
They spoke of England, spoke of you.
The flowers are scentless, black, and sere,
The perfume long has passed away;
The sea whose tides are year by year
Is set between us, chill and gray.
But you have reached a windless age,
The haven of a happy clime;
You do not dread the winter's rage,
Although we missed the summer-time.
And like the flower's breath over sea,
Across the gulf of time and pain,
To-night returns the memory
Of love that lived not all in vain.
_Andrew Lang._
[Illustration: The Season's Reveries]
DICKENS RETURNS ON CHRISTMAS DAY.
(A ragged girl in Drury Lane was heard to exclaim, "Dickens dead? Then
will Father Christmas die, too?" June 9, 1870.)
"Dickens is dead!" Beneath that grievous cry
London seemed shivering in the summer heat;
Strangers took up the tale like friends that meet:
"Dickens is dead!" said they, and hurried by;
Street children stopped their games--they knew not why,
But some new night seemed darkening down the street;
A girl in rags, staying her way-worn feet,
Cried, "Dickens dead? Will Father Christmas die?"
City he loved, take courage on thy way!
He loves thee still in all thy joys and fears:
Though he whose smiles made bright thine eyes of gray--
Whose brave sweet voice, uttering thy tongueless years,
Made laughters bubble through thy sea of tears--
Is gone, Dickens returns on Christmas Day!
_Theodore Watts._
A GRIEF AT CHRISTMAS.
FROM "IN MEMORIAM."
_First Year._
The time draws near the birth of Christ
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.
Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:
Each voice four changes on the wind,
That now dilate, and now decrease,
Peace and good-will, good-will and peace,
Peace and good-will, to all mankind.
This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wish'd no more to wake,
And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:
But they my troubled spirit rule,
For they controll'd me when a boy;
They bring me sorrow touched with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.
With such compelling cause to grieve
As daily vexes household peace,
And chains regret to his decease,
How dare we keep our Christmas-eve;
Which brings no more a welcome guest
To enrich the threshold of our night
With shower'd largess of delight,
In dance and song and game and jest.
Yet go, and while the holly boughs
Entwine the cold baptismal font,
Make one wreath more for Use and Wont,
That guard the portals of the house;
Old sisters of a day gone by,
Gray nurses, loving nothing new;
Why should they miss their yearly due
Before their time? They too will die.
With trembling fingers did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
A rainy cloud possess'd the earth,
And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.
At our old pastimes in the hall
We gambol'd, making vain pretence
Of gladness, with an awful sense
Of one mute Shadow watching all.
We paused: the winds were in the beech:
We heard them sweep the winter land;
And in a circle hand-in-hand
Sat silent, looking each at each.
Then echo-like our voices rang;
We sung, tho' every eye was dim,
A merry song we sang with him
Last year: impetuously we sang:
We ceased: a gentler feeling crept
Upon us: surely rest is meet.
"They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet,"
And silence follow'd, and we wept.
Our voices took a higher range;
Once more we sang: "They do not die
Nor lose their mortal sympathy,
Nor change to us, although they change;
"Rapt from the fickle and the frail
With gather'd power, yet the same
Pierces the keen seraphic flame
From orb to orb, from veil to veil."
Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,
Draw forth the cheerful day from night:
O Father, touch the east, and light
The light that shone when Hope was born.
_Second Year._
Again at Christmas did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
The silent snow possessed the earth,
And calmly fell on Christmas-eve:
The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost,
No wing of wind the region swept,
But over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost.
As in the winters left behind,
Again our ancient games had place,
The mimic picture's breathing grace,
And dance and song and hoodman-blind.
Who show'd a token of distress?
No single tear, no mark of pain:
O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?
O grief, can grief be changed to less?
O last regret, regret can die!
No--mixt with all this mystic frame,
Her deep relations are the same,
But with long use her tears are dry.
_Third Year._
The time draws near the birth of Christ;
The moon is hid, the night is still;
A single church below the hill
Is pealing, folded in the mist.
A single peal of bells below,
That wakens at this hour of rest
A single murmur in the breast,
That these are not the bells I know.
Like strangers' voices here they sound,
In lands where not a memory strays,
Nor landmark breathes of other days,
But all is new unhallow'd ground.
To-night ungather'd let us leave
This laurel, let this holly stand:
We live within the stranger's land,
And strangely falls our Christmas-eve.
Our father's dust is left alone
And silent under other snows:
There in due time the woodbine blows,
The violet comes, but we are gone.
No more shall wayward grief abuse
The genial hour with mask and mime;
For change of place, like growth of time,
Has broke the bond of dying use.
Let cares that petty shadows cast,
By which our lives are chiefly proved,
A little spare the night I loved,
And hold it solemn to the past.
But let no footsteps beat the floor,
Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;
For who would keep an ancient form
Thro' which the spirit breathes no more?
Be neither song, nor game, nor feast;
Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown;
No dance, no motion, save alone
What lightens in the lucid east
Of rising worlds by yonder wood.
Long sleeps the summer in the seed;
Run out your measured arcs, and lead
The closing cycle rich in good.
Ring out wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night:
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor;
Ring in redress of all mankind.
Ring out the slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out, my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in:
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
_Lord Tennyson._
MY SISTER'S SLEEP.
She fell asleep on Christmas-eve:
At length the long-ungranted shade
Of weary eyelids overweigh'd
The pain naught else might yet relieve.
Our mother, who had leaned all day
Over the bed from chime to chime,
Then raised herself for the first time,
And as she sat her down did pray.
Her little work-table was spread
With work to finish. For the glare
Made by her candle, she had care
To work some distance from the bed.
Without there was a cold moon up,
Of winter radiance sheer and thin;
The hollow halo it was in
Was like an icy crystal cup.
Through the small room, with subtle sound
Of flame, by vents the fireshine drove
And reddened. In its dim alcove
The mirror shed a clearness round.
I had been sitting up some nights,
And my tired mind felt weak and blank;
Like a sharp, strengthening wine it drank
The stillness and the broken lights.
Twelve struck. That sound, by dwindling years
Heard in each hour, crept off; and then
The ruffled silence spread again,
Like water that a pebble stirs.
Our mother rose from where she sat:
Her needles, as she laid them down,
Met lightly, and her silken gown
Settled: no other noise than that.
"Glory unto the Newly Born,"
So as said angels, she did say;
Because we were in Christmas-day,
Though it would still be long till morn.
Just then in the room over us
There was a pushing back of chairs,
As some one had sat unawares
So late, now heard the hour, and rose.
With anxious, softly-stepping haste
Our mother went where Margaret lay,
Fearing the sounds o'erhead--should they
Have broken her long-watched-for rest!
She stooped an instant, calm, and turned;
But suddenly turned back again;
And all her features seemed in pain
With woe, and her eyes gazed and yearned.
For my part, I but hid my face,
And held my breath, and spoke no word;
There was none spoken; but I heard
The silence for a little space.
Our mother bowed herself and wept;
And both my arms fell, and I said,
"God knows I knew that she was dead,"
And there, all white, my sister slept.
Then kneeling upon Christmas morn
A little after twelve o'clock,
We said, ere the first quarter struck,
"Christ's blessing on the newly born!"
_Dante Gabriel Rossetti._
CHRISTMAS IN EDINBOROUGH.
I.
Sheath'd is the river as it glideth by,
Frost-pearl'd are all the boughs of forests old,
The sheep are huddling close upon the wold,
And over them the stars tremble on high.
Pure joys these winter nights around me lie;
'Tis fine to loiter through the lighted streets
At Christmas-time, and guess from brow and pace
The doom and history of each one we meet,
What kind of heart beats in each dusky case;
Whiles, startled by the beauty of a face
In a shop-light a moment. Or instead,
To dream of silent fields where calm and deep
The sunshine lieth like a golden sleep--
Recalling sweetest looks of summers dead.
_Alexander Smith._
CHRISTMAS IN EDINBOROUGH.
II.
Joy like a stream flows through the Christmas streets,
But I am sitting in my silent room,
Sitting all silent in congenial gloom
To-night, while half the world the other greets
With smiles and grasping hands and drinks and meats,
I sit and muse on my poetic doom;
Like the dim scent within a budded rose,
A joy is folded in my heart; and when
I think on poets nurtured 'mong the throes
And by the lowly hearths of common men,--
Think of their works, some song, some swelling ode
With gorgeous music growing to a close,
Deep muffled as the dead-march of a god,--
My heart is burning to be one of those.
_Alexander Smith._
AROUND THE CHRISTMAS LAMP.
The wind may shout as it likes without;
It may rage, but cannot harm us;
For a merrier din shall resound within,
And our Christmas cheer will warm us.
There is gladness to all at its ancient call,
While its ruddy fires are gleaming,
And from far and near, o'er the landscape drear,
The Christmas light is streaming.
All the frozen ground is in fetters bound;
Ho! the yule-log we will burn it;
For Christmas is come in ev'ry home,
To summer our hearts will turn it.
There is gladness to all at its ancient call,
While its ruddy fires are gleaming;
And from far and near, o'er the landscape drear,
The Christmas light is streaming.
_J. L. Molloy._
CHRISTMAS-EVE.
Alone--with one fair star for company,
The loveliest star among the hosts of night,
While the gray tide ebbs with the ebbing light--
I pace along the darkening wintry sea.
Now round the yule-log and the glittering tree
Twinkling with festive tapers, eyes as bright
Sparkle with Christmas joys and young delight
As each one gathers to his family.
But I--a waif on earth where'er I roam--
Uprooted with life's bleeding hopes and fears,
From that one heart that was my heart's sole home,
Feel the old pang pierce through the severing years,
And as I think upon the years to come,
That fair star trembles through my falling tears.
_Mathilde Blind._
WONDERLAND.
Lo! I will make my home
In the beautiful Land of Books;
Where the friends of childhood roam
Through most delightful nooks.
I'll rent the unfinished floor
In Aladdin's palace built,
Whose walls, to the outer door,
Are ivory and gilt.
And the Caliph--Haroun--there
Will pass in his deft disguise;
But him I'll know by his air
So grand, and his eagle eyes.
And Cinderella, too,
Will weep when her sisters whip her:
And I'll be the Prince--or you--
Who will find her crystal slipper.
And O, what fun it will be
With Robin the Bobbin to feast,
Or to frequently call and see
The Beauty and the Beast.
For she and you and I
And the Rusty Dusty Miller
Will eat of a Christmas-Pie
With Jack the Giant-Killer.
Then come, let us make our homes
In the most frequented nooks
Of the land of elves and gnomes,
In the beautiful Land of Books!
_Charles Henry Lüders._
WAITING.
As little children in a darkened hall
At Christmas-tide await the opening door,
Eager to tread the fairy-haunted floor
Around the tree with goodly gifts for all,
Oft in the darkness to each other call,--
Trying to guess their happiness before--
Or knowing elders eagerly implore
To tell what fortune unto them may fall,--
So wait we in time's dim and narrow room,
And, with strange fancies or another's thought,
Try to divine before the curtain rise
The wondrous scene; forgetting that the gloom
Must shortly flee from what the ages sought,--
The Father's long-planned gift of Paradise.
_C. H. Crandall._
AUNT MARY.
A CORNISH CHRISTMAS CHANT.
Now of all the trees by the king's highway,
Which do you love the best?
O! the one that is green upon Christmas-day,
The bush with the bleeding breast.
Now the holly with her drops of blood for me:
For that is our dear Aunt Mary's tree.
Its leaves are sweet with our Saviour's name,
'Tis a plant that loves the poor:
Summer and winter it shines the same
Beside the cottage door.
O! the holly with her drops of blood for me:
For that is our kind Aunt Mary's tree.
'Tis a bush that the birds will never leave:
They sing in it all day long;
But sweetest of all upon Christmas-eve
Is to hear the robin's song.
'Tis the merriest sound upon earth and sea:
For it comes from our own Aunt Mary's tree.
So, of all that grow by the king's highway,
I love that tree the best;
'Tis a bower for the birds upon Christmas-day,
The bush of the bleeding breast.
O! the holly with her drops of blood for me:
For that is our sweet Aunt Mary's tree.
_Robert Stephen Hawker._
THE GLAD NEW DAY.
And why should not that land rejoice,
And darkness flee away,
When on its dim, benighted hills
Has dawned the glad new day?
For now behold the shepherds go,
The wondrous babe to see;
Ah, then methinks that all around
Was one grand jubilee!
Rejoice, ye nations blest with peace,
Let all the earth be glad;
The Prince of Peace comes down to-day,
In robes of pity clad.
Yea, thus should all mankind rejoice
On this glad day of love;
But yet, alas! how far we are
From those blest heights above!
Ah! for the time when men shall spend
This day as all men should,
When angels shall with joy attend,
And dwell among the good.
Then will this earth an Eden be,
A Paradise of love;
And all shall know the perfect bliss
Of those bright realms above.
_Thomas Moore._
UNDER THE HOLLY BOUGH.
Ye who have scorned each other
In this fast fading year,
Or wronged a friend or brother,
Come gather humbly here:
Let sinned against and sinning
Forget their strife's beginning,
Be links no longer broken
Beneath the holly bough,
Be sweet forgiveness spoken
Beneath the holly bough.
Ye who have loved each other
In this fast fading year,
Sister, or friend, or brother,
Come gather happy here:
And let your hearts grow fonder
As mem'ry glad shall ponder
Old loves and later wooing
Beneath the holly bough,
So sweet in their renewing
Beneath the holly bough.
Ye who have nourished sadness
In this fast fading year,
Estranged from joy and gladness,
Come gather hopeful here:
No more let useless sorrow
Pursue you night and morrow;
Come join in our embraces
Beneath the holly bough;
Take heart, uncloud your faces
Beneath the holly bough.
_Charles Mackay._
THE DAWN OF CHRISTMAS.
Acold it is and middle night:
The moon looks down the snow,
As if an angel, clad in white,
Carried her lanthorn so
That, going forth the streets of light,
She made an earthward glow.
A drift enfolds the chapel eaves
Like downy coverlet;
And, garnered into whited sheaves,
The graves are harvest-set
Waiting the yeoman. All the panes
Are rich with rimy fret.
The sexton mounts the outer stair
Where chilly sparrows cower--
And bells ring down the winter air
From forth the snowy tower;
For, muffled deep in drift, the clock
Hath struck the Christmas hour.
And over barn, and buried stack,
And out the naked copse,
And where the owl sits plump and black
Amid the chestnut tops--
The branches echo back the bells,
Like dulcet organ stops.
For blast of wind and creak of bough
And rustle of the frost,
And winter's inner voice--avow
The holy hour is crossed,
And far, mysterious music sounds,
Sweet like a harping host.
_H. S. M._
BALLADE OF CHRISTMAS GHOSTS.
Between the moonlight and the fire,
In winter evenings long ago,
What ghosts I raised at your desire,
To make your leaping blood run slow!
How old, how grave, how wise we grow!
What Christmas ghost can make us chill--
Save these that troop in mournful row,
The ghosts we all can raise at will?
The beasts can talk in barn and byre
On Christmas-eve, old legends know.
As one by one the years retire,
We men fall silent then, I trow--
Such sights has memory to show,
Such voices from the distance thrill.
Ah me! they come with Christmas snow,
The ghosts we all can raise at will.
Oh, children of the village choir,
Your carols on the midnight throw!
Oh, bright across the mist and mire,
Ye ruddy hearths of Christmas glow!
Beat back the shades, beat down the woe,
Renew the strength of mortal will;
Be welcome, all, to come or go,
The ghosts we all can raise at will.
Friend, _sursum corda_, soon or slow
We part, like guests who've joyed their fill;
Forget them not, nor mourn them so,
The ghosts we all can raise at will!
_Andrew Lang._
THE VILLAGE CHRISTMAS.
Meantime the village rouses up the fire:
While well attested, and as well believed,
Heard solemn, goes the goblin story round,
Till superstitious horror creeps o'er all.
Or, frequent in the sounding hall, they wake
The rural gambol. Rustic mirth goes round;
The simple joke that takes the shepherd's heart,
Easily pleased; the long, loud laugh, sincere;
The kiss, snatched hasty from the side-long maid,
On purpose guardless, or pretending sleep;
The leap, the slap, the haul; and, shook to notes
Of native music, the respondent dance,
Thus jocund fleets with them the winter-night.
_James Thomson._
WINTER.