With mist, And heavy with the scent of steaming leaves, And rosebuds mouldering on the dripping porch; One twilight, without rise or set of sun, Till beetles drone along the hollow lane, And round the leafless hawthorns, flitting bats Hawk the pale moths of winter? Welcome then At best, the flying gleam, the flying shower, The rain-pools glittering on the long white roads, And shadows sweeping on from down to down Before the salt Atlantic gale: yet come In whatsoever garb, or gay, or sad, Come fair, come foul, 'twill still be Christmas Day. How will it dawn, the coming Christmas Day? To sailors lounging on the lonely deck Beneath the rushing trade-wind? Or to him, Who by some noisome harbour of the East, Watches swart arms roll down the precious bales, Spoils of the tropic forests; year by year Amid the din of heathen voices, groaning Himself half heathen? How to those--brave hearts! Who toil with laden loins and sinking stride Beside the bitter wells of treeless sands Toward the peaks which flood the ancient Nile, To free a tyrant's captives? How to those-- New patriarchs of the new-found underworld-- Who stand, like Jacob, on the virgin lawns, And count their flocks' increase? To them that day Shall dawn in glory, and solstitial blaze Of full midsummer sun: to them that morn, Gay flowers beneath their feet, gay birds aloft, Shall tell of nought but summer: but to them, Ere yet, unwarned by carol or by chime, They spring into the saddle, thrills may come From that great heart of Christendom which beats Round all the worlds; and gracious thoughts of youth; Of steadfast folk, who worship God at home; Of wise words, learnt beside their mothers' knee; Of innocent faces upturned once again In awe and joy to listen to the tale Of God made man, and in a manger laid-- May soften, purify, and raise the soul From selfish cares, and growing lust of gain, And phantoms of this dream which some call life, Toward the eternal facts; for here or there, Summer or winter, 'twill be Christmas Day. Blest day, which aye reminds us, year by year, What 'tis to be a man: to curb and spurn The tyrant in us; that ignobler self Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute, And owns no good save ease, no
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