Historic Santa! Seasonable Claus!
Whose bulging sack is pregnant with delight;
Who comest in the middle of the night
To stuff distracting playthings in the maws
Of stockings never built for infant shins,
Suspended from the mantelpiece by pins.
Thou who on earth was named Nicholas--
There be dull clods who doubt thy magic power
To tour the sleeping world in half-an-hour,
And pop down all the chimneys as you pass
With woolly lambs and dolls of frabjous size
For grubby hands and wonder-laden eyes.
Not so thy singer, who believes in thee
Because he has a young and foolish spirit;
Because the simple faith that bards inherit
Of happiness is still the master key,
Opening life's treasure-house to whoso clings
To the dim beauty of imagined things.
Wherefore, good Kringle, do not pass me by,
Who am too old, alas! for trains and blocks,
But stuff the Love of Beauty in my socks
And Childlike Faith to last me till I die;
And there'll be room, I doubt not, in the toes
For Magic Cap and Spectacles of Rose.
And not a song of beauty, sung of old,
Or saga of the dead heroic days,
And not a blossom laughing by the ways,
Or wind of April blowing on the wold
But in my heart shall have the power to stir
The shy communion of the worshipper.
Hark! On the star-bright highways of the sky
Light hoofs beat and the far-off sleigh-bell sounds!
Is it old Santa on his gracious rounds
Or one dead legend drifting sadly by?
Not mine to say. And, though I long to peep,
Santa shall always find me fast asleep.
C. H. BRETHERTON.
Dec. 26, 1917.