CHRISTMAS IN EDINBOROUGH.
II.
Joy like a stream flows through the Christmas streets,
But I am sitting in my silent room,
Sitting all silent in congenial gloom
To-night, while half the world the other greets
With smiles and grasping hands and drinks and meats,
I sit and muse on my poetic doom;
Like the dim scent within a budded rose,
A joy is folded in my heart; and when
I think on poets nurtured 'mong the throes
And by the lowly hearths of common men,—
Think of their works, some song, some swelling ode
With gorgeous music growing to a close,
Deep muffled as the dead-march of a god,—
My heart is burning to be one of those.
Alexander Smith.
AROUND THE CHRISTMAS LAMP.
The wind may shout as it likes without;
It may rage, but cannot harm us;
For a merrier din shall resound within,
And our Christmas cheer will warm us.
There is gladness to all at its ancient call,
While its ruddy fires are gleaming,
And from far and near, o'er the landscape drear,
The Christmas light is streaming.
All the frozen ground is in fetters bound;
Ho! the yule-log we will burn it;
For Christmas is come in ev'ry home,
To summer our hearts will turn it.
There is gladness to all at its ancient call,
While its ruddy fires are gleaming;
And from far and near, o'er the landscape drear,
The Christmas light is streaming.