The bells ring out a happy sound,
The earth is mantled o’er with white,
It is the merry Christmas night,
And love and mirth and joy abound.
And here sit you and here sit I;
I should be happiest in the land,
For, oh, I hold the same dear hand
I’ve held for many a year gone by!
It is not withered up with care;
It is as fresh and fair to see,
As sweet to hold and dear to me,
As when with chimes upon the air
On Christmas nights of years ago
I held the same dear little thing
And felt its soft caresses bring
The flushes to my throbbing brow.
Ah, we were born to never part!
This little hand I hold to-night,
And I, so with a strange delight,
I press it to my beating heart,
And in the midnight’s solemn hush
I bless the little hand I hold.
In broken whispers be it told,
It is the old-time bobtail flush.
Then again in the following: