there ’s a song in the air!
There ’s a star in the sky!
There ’s a mother’s deep prayer
And a baby’s low cry!
And the star rains its fire while the Beautiful sing,
For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a king.
There ’s a tumult of joy
O’er the wonderful birth,
For the virgin’s sweet boy
Is...
The wintry blast goes wailing by,
The snow is falling overhead;
I hear the lonely sentry’s tread,
And distant watch-fires light the sky.
Dim forms go flitting through the gloom;
The soldiers cluster round the blaze
To talk of other Christmas days,
And softly speak of home and home.
My sabre swinging overhead
...
A Lighter scarf of richer fold
The morning flushed upon our sight,
And Evening trimmed her lamps of gold,
From deeper springs of purer light;
And softer drips bedewed the lea,
And whiter blossoms veiled the tree,
And bluer waves danced on the sea
When baby Zulma came to be!
The day before, a bird had sung
Strange...
So now is come our joyful’st feast;
Let every man be jolly;
Each room with ivy-leaves is drest,
And every post with holly.
Though some churls at our mirth repine,
Round your foreheads garlands twine,
Drown sorrow in a cup of wine,
And let us all be merry.
Now all our neighbors’ chimneys smoke,
And Christmas...
Or, Love in the Country
I.
THE HILL blast comes howling through leaf-rifted trees
That late were as harp-strings to each gentle breeze;
The strangers and cousins and every one flown,
While we sit happy-hearted—together—alone.
II.
Some are off to the mountain, and some to the fair,
The snow is on their cheek, on mine your black hair...
It was the calm and silent night!
Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,
And now was queen of land and sea.
No sound was heard of clashing wars;
Peace brooded o’er the hushed domain:
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars
Held undisturbed their ancient reign,
In the solemn midnight,...
BEHOLD where Beauty walks with Peace!
Behold where Plenty pours her horn
Of fruits, of flowers, fat increase,
As generous as light of morn.
Green Shasta, San Diego, seas
Of bloom and green between them rolled.
Great herds in grasses to their knees,
And green earth garmented in gold.
White peaks that prop the sapphire...
Dim dawn behind the tamarisks—the sky is saffron-yellow—
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the river-side, 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 byway!
Oh the clammy fog that hovers over earth!...
From “Marmion,” Introduction to Canto VI.
HEAP on more wood!—the wind is chill;
But, let it whistle as it will,
We ’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer:
Even, heathen yet, the savage Dane
At Iol more deep the mead did drain;
High on the beach his galleys drew,...
