THOUGHTS, DECEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH
BY DEEMS TAYLOR
’TIS Christmas eve. The very air
Seems charged to-night, seems subtly thrilled
By glad previsions of a rare,
Strange happiness, yet unfulfilled.
I sense this thing, and still my heart
Is numb, lethargic, dead. I hold
Myself from all the world apart.
The Christmas spirit leaves me cold.
Below me, in the frosty street,
I hear the city’s muffled song
Of carnival—the tramp of feet,
The voices of the passing throng.
I watch them as they hurry by
In kind confusion, faces bright
With Christmas comradeship; but I—
I am not one of them to-night.
Each hastens, in that host below,
To choose the gifts that shall delight
Another on the morrow. No,
I am not one of them to-night.
The laughing crowd, the siren call
Of blazing shops that beckon; nay,
Untouched, unmoved, I hear it all:
I did my shopping yesterday!