These good things come with Christmas-eve, and with them come the Waites. Except in some few very primitive districts, these do not go about for a week or more as they used to do, but merely on this night. And it is a fact singularly unfortunate for Mr. Bulwer’s theory of the effect of Methodism noticed before, that wherever Methodists exist they are sure to be amongst these waites, and are, in many places, the only ones. The strange, dreamy, yet delightful effect of the music and singing of these waites, as you hear them in a state rather of sleep than waking, who has not experienced? They are, as Fixlein expresses it, to our conscious senses, but half dormant understandings, “sounds out of heaven, singing voices of angels in the air.” I shall never forget the delicious impressions of this midnight music on my childish spirit, and would fain hear such strains on every returning Christmas-eve till I cease to hear any mortal sounds.
But Christmas morning comes; and ere daylight dawns, you are awoke by the rejoicing music of all the village or the city bells, as it may be; and cannot help feeling, spite of all that puritans and grave denouncers of times and seasons have said, that there is something holy in the remembrance of the time, which does your spirit good. Who can read these verses of, Wordsworth’s addressed to his brother, without feeling the truth of this?
TO THE REV. DR. WORDSWORTH.
The minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage eaves;
While, smitten by the lofty moon,
The encircling laurels thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural green.
Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sank to rest with folded wings;
Keen was the air but could not freeze
Nor check the music of their strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped the chords with strenuous hand.
And who but listened?—till was paid
Respect to every inmate’s claim;
The greeting given, the music played,
In honour of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And “merry Christmas” wished to all!
O Brother! I revere the choice
Which took thee from thy native hills;
And it is given thee to rejoice;
Though public care full often tills
(Heaven only witness of the toil)
A barren and ungrateful soil.
Yet would that thou with me and mine
Hadst heard this never-failing rite;
And seen on other faces shine
A true revival of the light—
Which Nature and these rustic Powers,
In simple childhood, spread on ours!
For pleasure hath not ceased to wait
On these expected, annual rounds,
Whether the rich man’s sumptuous gate
Call forth the unelaborate sounds,
Or they are offered at the door
That guards the dwelling of the poor.
How touching when at midnight sweep
Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark,
To hear—and sink again to sleep!
Or, at an earlier call, to mark,
By blazing fire, the still suspense
Of self-complacent innocence.