Christmas Part 18

"It snowes in our house Of meate and drinke;"

it is not that we have huge loads of beef chines, ribs, sirloins, legs, necks, b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and shoulders of mutton, fillets of veal, whole hogs, and pigs in various stages, from the tender suckling to the stiff-jointed father of a family, whose "back hair" makes good clothes-brushes, and whose head is brought in at college feasts; it is not that the air gives up its choicest fowl, and the waters yield their best fish: plentiful as these are with us, they are nothing in profusion to the kindly greeting and good wishes that fly about in the cold weather, and that circulate from land's end to land's end. The whole coast of England is surrounded by a general "shake hands." The coast-guard on their wintry walks do not greet each other more surely than old friends all over England do: one clasps another, and another a third, till from Dover to London and so on to York, from Yarmouth on the east to Bristol on the west, from John O'Groat's house at the extreme north to the Land's End, the very toe-nail of England on the south--a kindly greeting, we may be sure, will pa.s.s. And a cheerful thing it is, on this day of universal equality, on this day which--

"To the cottage and the crown, Brought tidings of salvation down,"

to think that we can touch and hold each other with friendly hands all over our land. We all of us shake hands on Christmas Day. Leigh Hunt had a quaint fancy that he had, as it were, by lineal descent, shaken hands with Milton. He would argue thus: he knew a man who had shaken hands with Dr. Johnson, who had clasped the hand of him who had shaken Dryden's right hand, who himself had thus greeted Andrew Marvell, who knew Master Elwood, the Quaker friend of Milton, who knew Milton himself; and thus, though our Sovereign has her hand kissed, not shaken, by her subjects, yet doubtless she will clasp the hands of her children, who, shaking those of others, will let the greeting and the good wishes descend to the lowest on that ladder of society which we are all trying to climb.

As for hearty good wishes, spoken in all kinds of voices, from the deepest ba.s.s to the shrillest treble, we are sure that they circulate throughout the little island, and are borne on the wings of the post all over the seas. Erasmus, coming to England in Henry VIII's time, was struck with the deep heartiness of our wishes--good, ay, and bad too; but he most admired the good ones. Other nations ask in their greetings how a man carries himself, or how doth he stand with the world, or how doth he find himself; but the English greet with a pious wish that G.o.d may give one a good morning or a good evening, good day, or "G.o.d'd'en,"

as the old writers have it; and when we part we wish that "G.o.d may be with you," though we now clip it into "Good b'ye."

A CHRISTMAS SONG

WILLIAM c.o.x BENNETT

Blow, wind, blow, Sing through yard and shroud; Pipe it shrilly and loud, Aloft as well as below; Sing in my sailor's ear The song I sing to you, "Come home, my sailor true, For Christmas that comes so near."

Go, wind, go, Hurry his home-bound sail, Through gusts that are edged with hail, Through winter, and sleet, and snow; Song, in my sailor's ear, Your shrilling and moans shall be, For he knows they sing him to me And Christmas that comes so near.

SERY

RICHARD WATSON GILDER

With wild surprise Four great eyes In two small heads, From neighboring beds Looked out--and winked-- And glittered and blinked At a very queer sight In the dim starlight.

As plain as can be A fairy tree Flashes and glimmers And shakes and s.h.i.+mmers.

Red, green and blue Meet their view; Silver and gold Their sharp eyes behold; Small moon, big stars; And jams in jars, And cakes, and honey And thimbles, and money, Pink dogs, blue cats, Little squeaking rats, And candles, and dolls, And crackers, and polls, A real bird that sings, And tokens and favors, And all sorts of things For the little shavers.

Four black eyes Grow big with surprise; And then grow bigger When a tiny figure, Jaunty and airy, (Is it a fairy?) From the tree-top cries, "Open wide! Black Eyes!

Come, children, wake now!

Your joys you may take now!"

Quick as you can think Twenty small toes In four pretty rows, Like little piggies pink, All kick in the air-- And before you can wink The tree stands bare!

A CHRISTMAS SONG

TUDOR JENKS

When mother-love makes all things bright, When joy comes with the morning light, When children gather round their tree, Thou Christmas Babe, We sing of Thee!

When manhood's brows are bent in thought, To learn what men of old have taught, When eager hands seek wisdom's key, Wise Temple Child, We learn of Thee!

When doubts a.s.sail, and perils fright, When, groping blindly in the night, We strive to read life's mystery, Man of the Mount, We turn to Thee!

When shadows of the valley fall, When sin and death the soul appall, One light we through the darkness see-- Christ on the Cross, We cry to Thee!

And when the world shall pa.s.s away, And dawns at length the perfect day, In glory shall our souls made free, Thou G.o.d enthroned, Then wors.h.i.+p Thee.

CHRISTMAS

(A Selection from "Dreamthorp")

ALEXANDER SMITH

Sitting here, I incontinently find myself holding a levee of departed Christmas nights. Silently, and without special call, into my study of imagination come these apparitions, clad in snowy mantles, brooched and gemmed with frosts. Their numbers I do not care to count, for I know they are the numbers of many years. The visages of two or three are sad enough, but on the whole 'tis a congregation of jolly ghosts. The nostrils of my memory are a.s.sailed by a faint odor of plum-pudding and burnt brandy. I hear a sound as of light music, a whisk of women's dresses whirled round in dance, a click as of gla.s.ses pledged by friends. Before one of these apparitions is a mound, as of a new-made grave, on which the snow is lying. I know, I know! Drape thyself not in white like the others, but in mourning stole of c.r.a.pe; and instead of dance music, let there haunt around thee the service for the dead! I know that sprig of mistletoe, O Spirit in the midst! Under it I swung the girl I loved--girl no more now than I am a boy--and kissed her spite of blush and pretty shriek. And thee, too, with fragrant trencher in hand, over which blue tongues of flame are playing, I do know--most ancient apparition of them all. I remember thy reigning night. Back to very days of childhood am I taken by the ghostly raisins simmering in a ghostly brandy flame. Where now the merry boys and girls that thrust their fingers in thy blaze? And now, when I think of it, thee also would I drape in black raiment, around thee also would I make the burial service murmur.

This, then, is Christmas, 1862. Everything is silent in Dreamthorp. The smith's hammer reposes beside the anvil. The weaver's flying shuttle is at rest. Through the clear wintry suns.h.i.+ne the bells this morning rang from the gray church tower amid the leafless elms, and up the walk the villagers trooped in their best dresses and their best faces--the latter a little reddened by the sharp wind: mere redness in the middle aged; in the maids, wonderful bloom to the eyes of their lovers--and took their places decently in the ancient pews. The clerk read the beautiful prayers of our Church, which seem more beautiful at Christmas than at any other period. For that very feeling which breaks down at this time the barriers which custom, birth, or wealth have erected between man and man, strikes down the barrier of time which intervenes between the wors.h.i.+pper of to-day and the great body of wors.h.i.+ppers who are at rest in their graves. On such a day as this, hearing these prayers, we feel a kins.h.i.+p with the devout generations who heard them long ago. The devout lips of the Christian dead murmured the responses which we now murmur; along this road of prayer did their thoughts of our innumerable dead, our brothers and sisters in faith and hope, approach the Maker, even as ours at present approach Him. Prayers over, the clergyman--who is no Boanerges, of Chrysostom, golden-mouthed, but a loving, genial-hearted, pious man, the whole extent of his life from boyhood until now, full of charity and kindly deeds, as autumn fields with heavy wheaten ears; the clergyman, I say--for the sentence is becoming unwieldy on my hands, and one must double back to secure connexion--read out in that silvery voice of his, which is sweeter than any music to my ear, those chapters of the New Testament that deal with the birth of the Saviour. And the red-faced rustic congregation hung on the good man's voice as he spoke of the Infant brought forth in a manger, of the s.h.i.+ning angels that appeared in the mid-air to the shepherds, of the miraculous star that took its station in the sky, and of the wise men who came from afar and laid their gifts of frankincense and myrrh at the feet of the child. With the story every one was familiar, but on that day, and backed by the persuasive melody of the reader's voice, it seemed to all quite new--at least, they listened attentively as if it were. The discourse that followed possessed no remarkable thoughts; it dealt simply with the goodness of the Maker of heaven and earth, and the shortness of time, with the duties of thankfulness and charity to the poor; and I am persuaded that every one who heard returned to his house in a better frame of mind. And so the service remitted us all to our own homes, to what roast-beef and plum-pudding slender means permitted, to gatherings around cheerful fires, to half-pleasant, half-sad remembrances of the dead and the absent.

From sermon I have returned like the others, and it is my purpose to hold Christmas alone. I have no one with me at table, and my own thoughts must be my Christmas guests. Sitting here, it is pleasant to think how much kindly feeling exists this present night in England. By imagination I can taste of every table, pledge every toast, silently join in every roar of merriment. I become a sort of universal guest.

With what propriety is this jovial season, placed amid dismal December rains and snows! How one pities the unhappy Australians, with whom everything is turned topsy-turvy, and who holds Christmas at midsummer!

The face of Christmas glows all the brighter for the cold. The heart warms as the frost increases. Estrangements which have embittered the whole year, melt in to-night's hospitable smile. There are warmer handshakings on this night than during the by-past twelve months. Friend lives in the mind of friend. There is more charity at this time than at any other. You get up at midnight and toss your spare coppers to the half-benumbed musicians whiffling beneath your windows, although at any other time you would consider their performance a nuisance, and call angrily for the police. Poverty, and scanty clothing, and fireless grates, come home at this season to the bosoms of the rich, and they give of their abundance. The very red-breast of the woods enjoys his Christmas feast. Good feeling incarnates itself into plum-pudding. The Master's words, "The poor ye have always with you," wear at this time a deep significance. For at least one night on each year over all Christendom there is brotherhood. And good men, sitting amongst their families, or by a solitary fire like me, when they remember the light, that shone over the poor clowns huddling on the Bethlehem plains eighteen hundred years ago, the apparition of s.h.i.+ning angels overhead, the song "Peace on earth and good-will toward men," which for the first hallowed the midnight air,--pray for that strain's fulfilment, that battle and strife may vex the nations no more, that not only on Christmas eve, but the whole year round, men shall be brethren owning one Father in heaven.

Once again, for the purpose of taking away all solitariness of feeling, and of connecting myself, albeit only in fancy, with the proper gladness of the time, let me think of the comfortable family dinners now being drawn to a close, of the good wishes uttered, and the presents made, quite valueless in themselves, yet felt to be invaluable from the feelings from which they spring; of the little children, by sweetmeats lapped in Elysium; and of the pantomime, pleasantest Christmas sight of all, with the pit a sea of grinning delight, the boxes a tier of beaming juvenility, the galleries, piled up to the far-receding roof, a ma.s.s of happy laughter which a clown's joke brings down in mighty avalanches. In the pit, sober people relax themselves, and suck oranges, and quaff ginger-pop; in the boxes, Miss, gazing through her curls, thinks the Fairy Prince the prettiest creature she ever beheld, and Master, that to be a clown must be the pinnacle of human happiness: while up in the galleries the hard literal world is for an hour sponged out and obliterated; the chimney-sweep forgets, in his delight when the policeman comes to grief, the harsh call of his master, and Cinderella, when the demons are foiled, and the long parted lovers meet and embrace in a paradise of light and pink gauze, the grates that must be scrubbed to-morrow. All bands and trappings of toil are for one hour loosened by the hands of imaginative sympathy. What happiness a single theatre can contain! And those of maturer years, or of more meditative temperament, sitting at the pantomime, can extract out of the s.h.i.+fting scenes meanings suitable to themselves; for the pantomime is a symbol or adumbration of human life. Have we not all known Harlequin, who rules the roast, and has the pretty Columbine to himself? Do we not all know that rogue of a clown with his peculating fingers, who brazens out of every sc.r.a.pe, and who conquers the world by good humour and ready wit?

And have we not seen Pantaloons not a few, whose fate it is to get all the kicks and lose all the halfpence, to fall through all the trap doors, break their s.h.i.+ns over all the barrows, and be forever captured by the policeman, while the true pilferer, the clown, makes his escape with the booty in his possession? Methinks I know the realities of which these things are but the shadows; have met with them in business, have sat with them at dinner. But to-night no such notions as these intrude; and when the torrent of fun, and transformation, and practical joking which rushed out of the beautiful fairy world gathered up again, the high-heaped happiness of the theatre will disperse itself, and the Christmas pantomime will be a pleasant memory the whole year through.

Thousands on thousands of people are having their midriffs tickled at this moment; in fancy I see their lighted faces, in memory I see their mirth.

By this time I should think every Christmas dinner at Dreamthorp or elsewhere has come to an end. Even now in the great cities the theatres will be dispersing. The clown has wiped the paint off his face.

Harlequin has laid aside his wand, and divested himself of his glittering raiment; Pantaloon, after refres.h.i.+ng himself with a pint of porter, is rubbing his aching joints; and Columbine, wrapped up in a shawl, and with sleepy eyelids, has gone home in a cab. Soon, in the great theatre, the lights will be put out, and the empty stage will be left to ghosts. Hark! midnight from the church tower vibrates through the frosty air. I look out on the brilliant heaven, and see a milky way of powdery splendour wandering through it, and cl.u.s.ters and knots of stars and planets s.h.i.+ning serenely in the blue frosty s.p.a.ces; and the armed apparition of Orion, his spear pointing away into immeasurable s.p.a.ce, gleaming overhead; and the familiar constellation of the Plough dipping down into the west; and I think when I go in again that there is one Christmas the less between me and my grave.

CHRISTMAS CAROL

PHILLIPS BROOKS

The earth has grown old with its burden of care, But at Christmas it always is young, The heart of the jewel burns l.u.s.trous and fair, And its soul full of music bursts forth on the air, When the song of the angels is sung.

It is coming, Old Earth, it is coming to-night!

On the snowflakes which cover thy sod The feet of the Christ-child fall gentle and white, And the voice of the Christ-child tells out with delight That mankind are the children of G.o.d.

On the sad and the lonely, the wretched and poor, The voice of the Christ-child shall fall; And to every blind wanderer open the door Of hope that he dared not to dream of before, With a suns.h.i.+ne of welcome for all.

The feet of the humblest may walk in the field Where the feet of the Holiest trod, This, then, is the marvel to mortals revealed When the silvery trumpets of Christmas have pealed, That mankind are the children of G.o.d.

THE END OF THE PLAY