by A. A. Milne
See how from far upon the Eastern rode
The star-led Wizards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire,
From out his secret Altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.
The Hymn.
* * *
I.
* * *
IT was the Winter wilde,
While the Heav'n-born childe,
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in aw to him
* * *
Had doff'd her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun, her lusty Paramour.
* * *
II.
* * *
Onely with speeches fair
She woo's the gentle Air
To hide her guilty front with innocent Snow,
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw,
Confounded, that her Maker's eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
* * *
III.
* * *
But he, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace:
She crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphere
His ready Harbinger,
With Turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing,
And waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through Sea and Land.
* * *
IV.
* * *
No War or Battleils sound
Was heard the World around:
* * *
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hooked Chariot stood
Unstain'd with hostile blood,
The Trumpet spake not to the armed throng,
And Kings sate still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
* * *
V.
* * *
But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of light
His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The Windes with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kist,
Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of Calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.
* * *
VI.
* * *
The Stars with deep amaze
Stand fixt in steadfast gaze,
Bending one way their precious influence,
And will not take their flight,
For all the morning light,
Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence;
But in their glimmering Orbs did glow,
Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
VII.
* * *
And though the shady gloom
Had given day her room,
The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed,
And hid his head for shame,
As his inferior flame,
The new-enlighten'd world no more should need,
He saw a greater Sun appear
Than his bright Throne, or burning Axletree could bear.
* * *
VIII.
* * *
The Shepherds on the Lawn,
Or ere the point of dawn,
Sate simply chatting in a rustic row;
Full little thought they than,
That the mighty Pan
Was kindly come to live with them below:
Perhaps their loves, or els their sheep,
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.
* * *
IX.
* * *
When such music sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet,
As never was by mortal finger strook,
Divinely warbled voice
Answering the stringed noise,
As all their souls in blissful rapture took:
* * *
The air such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echoes still prolongs each heav'nly close.
* * *
X.
* * *
Nature, that heard such sound
Beneath the hollow round
Of Cynthia's seat, the Airy region thrilling,
Now was almost won
To think her part was don,
And that her reign had here its last fulfilling;
She knew such harmony alone
Could hold all Heav'n and Earth in happier union.
* * *
XI.
* * *
At last surrounds their sight
A Globe of circular light,
That with long beams the shame-fac't Night array'd;
The helmed Cherubim
And sworded Seraphim,
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displaid,
Harping in loud and solemn quire,
With unexpressive notes to Heav'n's new-born Heir.
* * *
XII.
* * *
Such Music (as 'tis said)
Before was never made,
But when of old the sons of morning sung,
While the Creator Great
* * *
His constellations set,
And the well-balanc't world on hinges hung,
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the weltring waves their oozy channel keep.
* * *
XIII.
* * *
Ring out ye Crystal spheres,
Once bless our human ears,
(If ye have power to touch our senses so)
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time,
And let the Base of Heav'n's deep Organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to th'Angelic symphony.
* * *
XIV.
* * *
For if such holy Song
Enwrap our fancy long,
Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold,
And speckl'd vanity
Will sicken soon and die,
And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould,
And Hell itself will pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.
* * *
XV.
* * *
Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
* * *
Th' enameld Arras of the Rainbow wearing,
And Mercy set between,
Thron'd in Celestiall sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down stearing,
And Heav'n as at som festivall,
Will open wide the Gates of her high Palace Hall.
* * *
XVI.
* * *
But wisest Fate sayes no,
This must not yet be so,
The Babe lies yet in smiling Infancy,
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss;
So both himself and us to glorifie:
Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep,
The wakefull trump of doom must thunder through the deep,
* * *
XVII.
* * *
With such a horrid clang
As on mount Sinai rang
While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake:
The aged Earth agast
With terrour of that blas
t,
Shall from the surface to the center shake;
When at the worlds last session,
The dreadfull Judge in middle Air shall spread his throne.
XVIII.
* * *
And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is,
But now begins; for from this happy day
Th' old Dragon under ground,
In straiter limits bound,
Not half so far casts his usurped sway,
And wrath to see his Kingdom fail,
Swindges the scaly Horrour of his foulded tail.
* * *
XIX.
* * *
The Oracles are dumm,
No voice or hideous humm
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shreik the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,
Inspire's the pale-ey'd Priest from the prophetic cell.
* * *
XX.
* * *
The lonely mountains o're,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
From haunted spring and dale
Edg'd with poplar pale,
The parting Genius is with sighing sent,
* * *
With flowre-inwov'n tresses torn
The Nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
* * *
XXI.
* * *
In consecrated Earth,
And on the holy Hearth,
The Lars, and Lemures moan with midnight plaint,
In Urns, and Altars round,
A drear, and dying sound
Affrights the Flamins at their service quaint;
And the chill Marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.
* * *
XXII.
* * *
Peor, and Baalim,
Forsake their Temples dim,
With that twise-batter'd god of Palestine,
And mooned Ashtaroth,
Heav'ns Queen and Mother both,
Now sits not girt with Tapers holy shine,
The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn,
In vain the Tyrian Maids their wounded Thamuz mourn.
* * *
XXIII.
* * *
And sullen Moloch fled,
Hath left in shadows dred,
His burning Idol all of blackest hue,
In vain with Cymbals ring,
* * *
They call the grisly king,
In dismall dance about the furnace blue,
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis and Orus, and the Dog Anubis hast.
* * *
XXIV.
* * *
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian Grove, or Green,
Trampling the unshowr'd Grasse with lowings loud:
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest,
Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud,
In vain with Timbrel'd Anthems dark
The sable-stoled Sorcerers bear his worshipt Ark.
* * *
XXV.
* * *
He feels from Juda's land
The dredded Infants hand,
The rayes of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor all the gods beside,
Longer dare abide,
Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe, to shew his Godhead true,
Can in his swadling bands controul the damned crew.
* * *
XXVI.
* * *
So when the Sun in bed,
Curtain'd with cloudy red,
* * *
Pillows his chin upon an Orient wave.
The flocking shadows pale
Troop to th' infernall jail,
Each fetter'd Ghost slips to his severall grave,
And the yellow-skirted Fayes,
Fly after the Night-steeds, leaving their Moon-lov'd maze.
* * *
XXVII.
* * *
But see the Virgin blest,
Hath laid her Babe to rest.
Time is our tedious Song should here have ending,
Heav'ns youngest-teemed Star
Hath fixt her polisht Car,
Her sleeping Lord with Handmaid Lamp attending.
And all about the Courtly Stable,
Bright-harnest Angels sit in order serviceable.
A Christmas Fairy
John Strange Winter
A Christmas Fairy
IT was getting very near to Christmas-time, and all the boys at Miss Ware's school were talking excitedly about going home for the holidays, of the fun they would have, the presents they would receive on Christmas morning, the tips from Grannies, Uncles, and Aunts, of the pantomimes, the parties, the never-ending joys and pleasures which would be theirs.
"I shall go to Madame Tussaud's and to the Drury Lane pantomime," said young Fellowes, "and my mother will give a party, and Aunt Adelaide will give another, and Johnny Sanderson and Mary Greville, and ever so many others. I shall have a splendid time at home. Oh! Jim, I wish it were all holidays like it is when one's grown up."
* * *
"My Uncle Bob is going to give me a pair of skates—clippers," remarked Harry Wadham.
* * *
"My father's going to give me a bike," put in George Alderson.
* * *
"Will you bring it back to school with you?" asked Harry.
* * *
"Oh! yes, I should think so, if Miss Ware doesn't say no."
* * *
"I say, Shivers," cried Fellowes, "where are you going to spend your holidays?"
* * *
"I'm going to stop here," answered the boy called Shivers, in a very forlorn tone.
* * *
"Here—with old Ware?—oh, my! Why can't you go home?"
* * *
"I can't go home to India," answered Shivers—his real name, by the bye, was Egerton, Tom Egerton.
* * *
"No—who said you could? But haven't you any relations anywhere?"
* * *
Shivers shook his head. "Only in India," he said miserably.
* * *
"Poor old chap; that's rough luck for you. Oh, I'll tell you what it is, you fellows, if I couldn't go home for the holidays—especially at Christmas—I think I'd just sit down and die."
* * *
"Oh! no, you wouldn't," said Shivers; "you'd hate it, and you'd get ever so home-sick and miserable, but you wouldn't die over it. You'd just get through somehow, and hope something would happen before next year, or that some kind fairy or other would——"
* * *
"Bosh! there are no fairies nowadays," said Fellowes. "See here, Shivers, I'll write home and ask my mother if she won't invite you to come back with me for the holidays."
* * *
"Will you really?"
* * *
"Yes, I will: and if she says yes, we shall have such a splendid time, because you know, we live in London, and go to everything, and have heaps of tips and parties and fun."
* * *
"Perhaps she will say no," suggested poor little Shivers, who had steeled himself to the idea that there would be no Christmas holidays for him, excepting that he would have no lessons for so many weeks.
* * *
"My mother isn't at all the kind of woman who says no," Fellowes declared loudly.
* * *
In a few days' time, however, a letter arrived from his mother, which he opened eagerly.
* * *
"My own darling boy," it said, "I am so very sorry to have to tell you that dear little Ag
gie is down with scarlet fever, and so you cannot come home for your holidays, nor yet bring your young friend with you, as I would have loved you to do if all had been well here. Your Aunt Adelaide would have had you there, but her two girls have both got scarlatina—and I believe Aggie got hers there, though, of course, poor Aunt Adelaide could not help it. I did think about your going to Cousin Rachel's. She most kindly offered to invite you, but, dear boy, she is an old lady, and so particular, and not used to boys, and she lives so far from anything which is going on that you would be able to go to nothing, so your father and I came to the conclusion that the very best thing that you could do under the circumstances is for you to stay at Miss Ware's and for us to send your Christmas to you as well as we can. It won't be like being at home, darling boy, but you will try and be happy—won't you, and make me feel that you are helping me in this dreadful time. Dear little Aggie is very ill, very ill indeed. We have two nurses. Nora and Connie are shut away in the morning-room and to the back stairs and their own rooms with Miss Ellis, and have not seen us since the dear child was first taken ill. Tell your young friend that I am sending you a hamper from Buszard's, with double of everything, and I am writing to Miss Ware to ask her to take you both to anything that may be going on in Cross Hampton. And tell him that it makes me so much happier to think that you won't be alone.—