Christmas Carols and Midsummer Songs

CHRISTMAS CAROLS

 
Wake from your sleep, sweet Christians, now, and listen.
A little song
We have, so sweet it like a star doth glisten,
And dance along.
Now wake and hark: all brightly it is glowing
With yule flames merry,
And o'er it many a holly sprig is growing;
And scarlet berry.
A bough of evergreen, with wax-lights gleaming,
It bravely graces;
And o'er its lines the star that's eastward beaming
Leaves golden traces.
Also, our little song; it sweetly praiseth,
Like birds in flocks
When morning from her bed of roses raiseth
Her golden locks.
But this it is that makes most sweet our story,
When all is said:
It holds a little Child with rays of glory
Around His head.
 

– M. E. W.

CHRISTMAS CAROLS AND MIDSUMMER SONGS

 
Out of the Northland bleak and bare,
O wind with a royal roar,
Fly, fly,
Through the broad arched sky,
Flutter the snow, and rattle and cry
At every silent door —
Loud, loud, till the children hear,
And meet the day with a ringing cheer:
"Hail to the Christmas-tide!"
 
 
INTO the silent waiting East
T here cometh a shining light —
Far, far,
Through a dull gray bar
Closing over a dying star
That watched away the night —
Rise, rise, shine and glow,
Over a wide white world of snow,
Sun of the Christmas-tide!
 
 
Out of the four great gates of day
A tremulous music swells;
Hear, hear,
Now sweet and clear,
Over and under and far and near,
A thousand happy bells:
Joy, joy, and jubilee!
Good-will to men from sea to sea,
This merry Christmas-tide!
 
 
Lo! in the homes of every land
The children reign to-day;
They alone,
With our hearts their throne,
And never a sceptre but their own
Small hands to rule and sway!
Peace, peace – the Christ-child's love —
Flies over the world, a white, white dove,
This happy Christmas-tide!
 

THE SILENT CHILDREN

By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

 
THE light was low in the school-room;
The day before Christmas day
Had ended. It was darkening in the garden
Where the Silent Children play.
 
 
Throughout that House of Pity,
The soundless lessons said,
The noiseless sport suspended,
The voiceless tasks all read,
 
 
The little deaf-mute children,
As still as still could be,
Gathered about the master,
Sensitive, swift to see,
 
 
With their fine attentive fingers
And their wonderful, watchful eyes —
What dumb joy he would bring them
For the Christmas eve's surprise!
 
 
The lights blazed out in the school-room
The play-ground went dark as death;
The master moved in a halo;
The children held their breath:
 
 
"I show you now a wonder —
The audiphone," he said.
He spoke in their silent language,
Like the language of the dead.
 
 
And answering spake the children,
As the dead might answer too:
"But what for us, O master?
This may be good for you;
 
 
"But how is our Christmas coming
Out of a wise machine?
For not like other children's
Have our happy hours been;
 
 
"And not like other children's
Can they now or ever be!"
But the master smiled through the halo:
"Just trust a mystery,
Then to the waiting marvel
The listening children leant:
Like listeners, the shadows
Across the school-room bent,
O my children, for a little,
As those who suffer must!
Great 'tis to bear denial,
But grand it is to trust."
 
 
While Science, from her silence
Of twice three thousand years,
Gave her late salutation
To sealed human ears.
 
 
Quick signalled then the master:
Sweet sang the hidden choir —
Their voices, wild and piercing,
Broke like a long desire
 
 
That to content has strengthened.
Glad the clear strains outrang:
"Nearer to Thee, oh, nearer!"
The pitying singers sang,
 
 
Happy that Christmas evening:
Wise was the master's choice,
Who gave the deaf-mute children
The blessed human voice.
 
 
Wise was that other Master,
Tender His purpose dim,
Who gave His Son on Christmas,
To draw us "nearer Him."
 
 
"Nearer to Thee, oh, nearer,
Nearer, my God' to Thee! "
Awestruck, the silent children
Hear the great harmony.
 
 
We are all but silent children,
Denied and deaf and dumb
Before His unknown science —
Lord, if Thou wilt, we come!
 

A DAY IN WINTER

By Mrs. L. C. Whiton

 
THROUGH the crimson fires of morning
Streaming upward in the East,
Leaps the sun, with sudden dawning,
Like a captive king released;
And December skies reflected
In the azure hue below
Seem like summer recollected
In the dreaming of the snow. —
It is winter, little children, let the summer,
singing, go!
 
 
There are crisp winds gaily blowing
From the North and from the West;
'Bove the river strongly flowing
Lies the river's frozen breast:
O'er its shining silence crashing
Skim the skaters to and fro;
And the noonday splendors flashing
In the rainbow colors show. —
It is winter, little children, let the summer,
singing, go!
 
 
When the gorgeous day is dying,
There is swept a cloud of rose
O'er the hill-tops softly lying
In the flush of sweet repose;
And the nests, all white with snowing,
In the twilight breezes blow;
And the untired moon is showing
Her bare heart to the snow. —
It is winter, little children, let the summer,
singing, go!
 

"TWELVE O'CLOCK, AND ALL'S WELL!"

( A Christmas Rhyme of Might-Have-Been.)

By M. S. E. P

 
I KNOW of an Owl,
A story-book Owl,
And he dwells in a Cloudland tree,
So way-high-up you never see
A glimpse of the great white fowl.
 
 
And this ancient fowl,
This story-book Owl,
Sometimes to himself he speaks —
Once in a thousand years or so —
In a voice that crackles and creaks
And never is heard by the children below:
"Tu-whit! tu-whoo!
I sleep by day,
Of course I do —
It's the sensible way."
 
 
For when little children lie fast asleep,
And darkness enshrouds the world so deep,
And weary eyes close to gaze only in dreams,
This story-book bird
With the big round eyes,
Whom nothing escapes,
So knowing and wise,
Watches and peers, with never a wink,
Into crannies and nooks where one might think
No danger would come, so peaceful it seems.
 
 
And prying about, this story-book bird
In the snowy thick
Of a Christmas eve —
If you will believe —
Just in the nick
Found the strangest thing that ever you heard:
Santa Klaus asleep,
All down in a heap,
On the floor of his sleigh
Ready packed for the way!
 
 
And think of the stockings swaying
At 'leven o' the night,
With the silent firelight
All over them fitfully playing —
A dangling host
From the chimney nails
As warm as toast —
But empty, pitiful,
They promise a million wails
From just one city-full!
 
 
"Tu-whit! to-whoo!
Here's a to-do!"
Said the sleepless bird,
The wise old owl,
The watchful fowl.
He flew and he whirred,
Soft Cloudland exploring,
Led up like an arrow
By the wildest of snoring,
Till he stopped,
Then dropped
On the edge of a cloud —
Oh, the snoring was loud! —
Then stalked to that sleigh.
Ah, what a fine dose! —
He flashed out one claw, and
Tweaked Santa Klaus' nose.
 
 
Santa woke with a jump,
Sat up in his sleigh,
Rubbed his nose —
And I don't suppose
Understands to this day —
And gazing around he took in the plight,
He seized his reins in the funniest fright,
And down he came in the snowy midnight
All rosy and bright —
The great, merry elf,
Just like himself,
Bluster and noise, nonsense and fun,
With gifts for the children, everyone;
While, soft and far, every bell
Chimed "Twelve o' the clock and all's well!"
And the slumbering world might have heard
The great white wide-winged story-book bird
A-calling "Merry Christmas!" forth in glee
As he flew up to his Cloudland tree.
 
 
And the Owl never told – I alone knew —
So don't you tell, whatever you do.
How near the world came to a disaster most shocking,
Waking Christmas morning without a filled stocking!