A SONNET OF THE SEASON
The carol in my heart I send to you:
It comes from out the depths of brooding time
To cheer and bless in every place and clime;
To purge the false, to chasten and subdue;
To lift the drooping life, inspire the true
To nobler deeds and thoughts of love sublime.
This anthem—which I sing in sonnet rhyme—
Judean shepherds heard and angels knew!
And now we fear no longer war's alarms,
For red-eyed Mars has fled at last our home:
Christ took the little children in his arms
And blessed them, saying, Suffer them to come
To me that all the sons of men may find
My kingdom here within the child-like mind.
EUTERPE
O lyric muse, thou didst not tune alone
The lyre that loving Orpheus smote
With subtle touch, who struck the golden note
That pierced dread Pluto's heart of stone,
And won again Eurydice his own;
Nor yet Erate's lute, nor Sappho's throat
That thrilled the ear in Grecian isles remote,
Where Homer sang, and Art had built her throne:
But thou, Euterpe, touched blind Milton's tongue,
And swept the thousand chords of Shakespeare's soul;
Woke Byron from his hours of idle dream,
And then he sang mankind a deathless song.
But thou at last didst reach the lyric goal
Of art in Tennyson's immortal theme.