From lonely shrines on steep and stony byways
Their clear wild music up the pathway soars;
It gushes like a fount on traveled highways,
And through the populous piazza pours.
They cling to their old ways, these simple-hearted
And humble dwellers on the uplands high;
Their notes, an echo of the days departed,
Span gulfs of time, and bring the dead years nigh.
Long may the cool Calabrian laurel alleys
Hearken the strains, in rarer ether born,
Of minstrels wending down the mountain valleys
To greet the coming of the Christmas morn!
Twelfth Night Song
Heaped be the fagots high,
And the half-burnèd bough
From last year’s revelry
Be litten now!
Brimmed be the posset bowl
For every lusty soul;
And while the maskers rule,
Cry ‘Noel!’ cry ‘Noel!’ down all the halls of Yule!
O eager viols, thrill!
Pipe, hautboys, clear and sweet!
Work your impetuous will,
Ye restless feet!
For every lip—a glass!
For every lad—a lass!
And, ere the ardors cool,
Cry ‘Noel!’ cry ‘Noel!’ down all the halls of Yule!
Yule at Thengelfor
It was Yule at Thengelfor,—
The sharp white tide of Yule;
And the mailèd Thanes of War,
Bred in the fiery school
Of the devotees of Thor,
Flung into the council-hall
With sneer and clamorous call
At the calm-browed Thanes of Peace
Who worshiped without cease,—
Bending in prayer the knee
To the One of Galilee
Who died, as they said, for all.
Each man stood in his place
That sharp white noon of Yule,
And the War-Thanes hooted “fool,”
And “coward” and “craven knave;”
And they flashed, each one, a glaive
In every Peace-Thane’s face.
But the Peace-Thanes were not cowed,
Smiling their quiet smile
At the flaunts and threats and jeers
Roaring about their ears;
And they held them poised and proud,
Till, after a breathing while,
The tumult died like the sea
Subsiding sullenly
Around the breast of an isle
Set at the last fiord’s verge,
Fronting the western surge.
Then into the council-hall
Where Peace confronted War,—
Where Christ confronted Thor,—
Dauntless, willowy, tall,
Came a maid of Thengelfor,—
The Princess. Ah, how fair
Was the sunrise sheen of her hair,
More wondrous to behold
Than her coronet of gold!
And she paused between them there,
As white as the Yule was white,
Till a hush fell on the air
Like the hush of the middle night.
And she said, “What stand ye for?”
To the mailèd Thanes of War;
And they shouted shrill, “For Thor,
And the kingdom’s olden might!”
Then she turned her, level-eyed,
To the Peace-Thanes. “Ye?” she cried;
As in one voice they replied,
“For Christ, and the rule of right!”