Outside the snow is falling. It sifts silently into each nook and corner, softens all the hard and ugly lines, and throws the spotless mantle of charity over the blemishes, the shortcomings. Christmas morning will dawn pure and white.
Jacob Riis in Children of the Tenements (abridged)
Christmas at Sea
THE sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor'wester, blowing squally off the sea,
And the cliffs and spouting breakers were the only thing a-lee.
We heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day,
But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.