Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pine,
Christmas in lands of the palm-tree and vine,
Christmas where snow peaks stand solemn and white
Christmas where cornfields stand sunny and bright.
Christmas where children are hopeful and gay,
Christmas where old men are patient and gray,
Christmas where peace, like a dove in his flight,
Broods o’er brave men in the thick of the fight;
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!
For the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all;
No palace too great, no cottage too small.
PHILLIPS BROOKS
O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM O little town of Bethlehem!
How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.
For Christ is born of Mary,
And gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth!
And praises sing to God the King,
And peace to men on earth.
How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still
The dear Christ enters in.
O holy Child of Bethlehem!
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us to-day.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!
PHILLIPS BROOKS
PRAY WITHOUT CEASING Unanswered yet the prayer your lips have pleaded
In agony of heart these many years?
Does faith begin to fail, is hope declining,
And think you all in vain those falling tears?
Say not the Father has not heard your prayer;
You shall have your desire, sometime, somewhere.
Unanswered yet? tho’ when you first presented
This one petition at the Father’s throne,
It seemed you could not wait the time of asking,
So anxious was your heart to have it done;
If years have passed since then, do not despair,
For God will answer you sometime, somewhere.
Unanswered yet? But you are not unheeded;
The promises of God forever stand;
To Him our days and years alike are equal;
Have faith in God! It is your Lord’s command.
Hold on to Jacob’s angel, and your prayer
Shall bring a blessing down sometime, somewhere.
Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say unanswered,
Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done,
The work began when first your prayer was uttered,
And God will finish what He has begun.
Keep incense burning at the shrine of prayer,
And glory shall descend sometime, somewhere.
Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered;
Her feet are firmly planted on the Rock;
Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted,
Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock.
She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer,
And cries, “It shall be done sometime, somewhere.”
OPHELIA GUYON BROWNING
THANATOPSIS To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around—.
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice:—
Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shall thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shall lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings.
The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers, that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
So shall thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men—
The youth in life’s fresh spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerab
le caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
TRUTH, CRUSHED TO EARTH Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again—
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
WAITING Serene I fold my arms and wait,
Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea:
I rave no more ’gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.
I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.
Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.
What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years
My heart shall reap where it has sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.
The waters know their own, and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.
The floweret nodding in the wind
Is ready plighted to the bee;
And, maiden, why that look unkind?
For lo! thy lover seeketh thee.
The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high
Can keep my own away from me.
And dies among his worshippers.
JOHN BURROUGHS
EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE A fire mist and a planet—
A crystal and a cell,—
A jellyfish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty,
And a face turned from the clod—
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields
And the wild geese sailing high;
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the goldenrod—
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.
Like tides on a crescent sea beach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in—
Come from the mystic ocean,
Whose rim no foot has trod—
Some of us call it Longing,
And others call it God.
A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathway plod—
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.
WILLIAM HERBERT CARROUTH
NEARER HOME One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o’er and o’er;
Nearer my home today am I
Then e’er I’ve been before.
Nearer my Father’s house,
Where many mansions be;
Nearer, today, the great white throne,
Nearer the crystal sea.
Nearer the bound of life,
Where burdens are laid down;
Nearer, to leave the heavy cross
Nearer to gain the crown.
But, lying dark between,
Winding down through the night,
There rolls the deep and unknown stream
That leads at last to light.
E’en now, purchance, my feet
Are slipping on the brink,
And I, today, am nearer home,—
Nearer than now I think.
Father, perfect my trust!
Strengthen my power of faith!
Nor let me stand, at last, alone
Upon the shore of death.
PHOEBE CARY
THERE IS NO UNBELIEF There is no unbelief;
Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod
And waits to see it push away the clod—
He trusts in God.
There is no unbelief;
Whoever says beneath the sky,
“Be patient, heart; light breaketh by and by,”
Trusts the Most High.
There is no unbelief;
Whoever sees ’neath winter’s field of snow,
The silent harvest of the future grow—
God’s power must know.
There is no unbelief;
Whoever lies down on his couch to sleep,
Content to lock each sense in slumber deep,
Knows God wilt keep.
There is no unbelief;
Whoever says “tomorrow,” “the unknown,”
“The future,” trusts that power alone
He dares disown.
There is no unbelief;
The heart that looks on when the eyelids close,
And dares to live when life has only woes,
God’s comfort knows.
There is no unbelief;
For this by day and night unconsciously
The heart lives by the faith the lips deny.
God knoweth why.
ELIZABETH YORK CASE
THE ABIDING LOVE It singeth low in every heart,
We hear it each and all—
A song of those who answer not,
However we may call;
They throng the silence of the breast,
We see them as of yore—
The kind, the brave, the sweet,
Who walk with us no more.
Tis hard to take the burden up
When these have laid it down;
They brightened all the joy of life,
They softened every frown;
But, Oh, ’tis good to think of them
When we are troubled sore!
Thanks be to God that such have been,
Although they are no more.
More homelike seems the vast unknown
Since they have entered there;
To follow them were not so hard,
Wherever they may fare;
They cannot be where God is not,
On any sea or shore;
Whate’er betides, thy love abides,
Our God, forever more.
JOHN WHITE CHADWICK
A PRAYER FOR EVERY DAY Make me too brave to lie or be unkind.
Make me too understanding, too, to mind
The little hurts companions give, and friends,
The careless hurts that no one quite intends.
Make me too thoughtful to hurt others so.
Help me to know
The inmost hearts of those for whom I care,
Their secret wishes, all the loads they bear,
That I may add my courage to their own.
May I make lonely folks feel less alone,
And happy ones a little happier yet.
May I forget
What ought to be forgotten; and recall
Unfailing, all
That ought to be recalled, each kindly thing,
Forgetting what might sting.
To all upon my way,
Day after day,
Let me be joy, be hope! Let my life sing!
MARY CAROLYN
DAVIES
SORROW Count each affliction, whether light or grave,
God’s messenger sent down to thee; do thou
With courtesy receive him, rise and bow;
And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave;
Then lay before him all thou hast; allow
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,
Or mar thy hospitality; no wave
Of mortal tumult to obliterate
Thy soul’s marmoreal calmness.
Grief should be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate,
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;
Strong to consume small troubles; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.
Let me be joy, be hope! Let my life sing!
SIR AUBREY DE VERE
EVENING CONTEMPLATION Softly now the light of day
Fades upon my sight away;
Free from care, from labor free,
Lord, I would commune with Thee.
Thou, whose all-pervading eye
Naught escapes, without, within!
Pardon each infirmity,
Open fault, and secret sin.
Soon for me the light of day
Shall for ever pass away;
Then, from sin and sorrow free,
Take me, Lord, to dwell with Thee.
Thou who, sinless, yet hast known
All of man’s infirmity!
Then, from Thine eternal throne,
Jesus, look with pitying eye.
Let me be joy, be hope! Let my life sing!
GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE
HYMN Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us
O’er the world’s tempestuous sea;
Guard us, guide us, keep us, feed us,
For we have no help but thee;
Yet possessing every blessing,
If our God our Father be.
Saviour, breathe forgiveness o’er us,
All our weakness thou dost know;
Thou didst tread this earth before us;
Thou didst feel its keenest woe;
Lone and dreary, faint and weary,
BEST LOVED POEMS Page 12