Glad hearts that warble songs divine,
Sweet singers of a mourning race,
The ages long your brows shall grace
With crowns where bays and laurels twine!
For man the grandest garland brings,
To bless the tender lives that tell,
And with their mystic music swell,
The lays that Nature fondly sings!
CHRISTMAS TIME.
How sweet the brazen belfries chime
Across the hills and through the dales,
And o'er the breasts of meadowed vales,
Beneath the smiles of Christmas time!
Rough sorrow's thorny fingers grow
As soft and waxen as a child's,
And balmy pleasures o'er the wilds
Chant music to the drifting snow.
Ah, scattered locks that fringe my face,
With wintry wisps of white and gray!
Ah, sad, dimmed eyes that look away
To artless childhood's tender grace!
To-night those years with joys sublime
Steal over me and fill my soul
With lullabies of bliss that roll
The golden glees of Christmas time.
Again I live in wondrous days,
When baby hands with chubby glee
Plucked gladness from the loaded tree
Where loving burdens bent the sprays;
The sunny songs of that sweet clime
Sing softly in my soul again,
Till I forget the ways of men
And laugh and shout at Christmas time.
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