CHRISTMAS.
FIFTY YEARS AGO.
Christmas! why child, can this be Christmas Eve?
Ah, me! the years run swiftly on;
Threads in the warp of this short life we live.
And now my chequered web is well nigh spun.
And Christmas seems not what it used to be,—
The good old customs all are changed, I wean;
Yet memory of old times is left with me—
The days whose brightness these dimm'd eyes have seen.
Come, Elsie, bring your stool beside my chair,
Stir up the fire to shine with brighter glow,
And while it flickers on your sunny hair,
I'll tell a Christmas-tale of long ago—
Full fifty years ago, when I was young,
And this grey hair like yours was golden-bright,
When mirth and laughter dwelt on brow and tongue,
In fleet winged hours, that sped with magic flight.
Sometimes, in waking dreams it all comes back,—
Familiar forms move softly through the room,
Then leave me, gliding up the moonlight track,
Wafting sweet music down the twilight gloom.
And at these times I see the home that stood,
In the lone highland valley far away;
The snow-crowned hills, the lake, the lonely wood,
Through which I wandered many a summer day.
And I was happy in those summers, child!—
Life in its morning brightness knows not gloom,
The rose-tinged future-mists hide waste and wild
As sharp thorns hide beneath the rose's bloom.
And girlhood seemed like some fair sunny day
Without a cloud to mar the summer sky.
On pleasure's airy pinions borne away
Too swiftly far the winged hours sped by.