Christmas Part 20

"Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise!"

How steeped now in the stillness of moonlight are all those pale, pillared Churches, Courts and Cloisters, Shrines and Altars, with here and there a Statue standing in the shade, or Monument sacred to the memory of the pious--the immortal dead. Some great clock is striking from one of many domes--from the majestic Tower of St. Mary Magdalen--and in the deepened hush that follows the solemn sound, the mingling waters of the Cherwell and the Isis soften the severe silence of the holy night.

Remote from kindred, and from all the friends.h.i.+ps that were the native growth of the fair fields where our boyhood and our youth had roamed and meditated and dreamed, those were indeed years of high and lofty mood which held us in converse with the shades of great Poets and ages of old in Rhedicyna's hallowed groves, still, serene, and solemn, as that Attic Academe where divine Plato, with all Hybla on his lips, discoursed such excellent music that his life seemed to the imagination spiritualized--a dim reminiscence of some former state of being. How sank then the Christmas Service of that beautiful Liturgy into our hearts! Not faithless we to the simple wors.h.i.+p that our forefathers had loved; but Conscience told us there was no apostasy in the feelings that rose within us when that deep organ began to blow, that choir of youthful voices so sweetly to join the diapason,--our eyes fixed all the while on that divine Picture over the Altar, of our Saviour

"Bearing his cross up rueful Calvary."

The City of Palaces disappears--and in the setting sunlight we behold mountains of soft crimson snow! The sun hath set, and even more beautiful are the bright-starred nights of winter, than summer in all its glories beneath the broad moons of June. Through the woods of Windermere, from cottage to cottage, by coppice-pathways winding up to dwellings among the hill-rocks where the birch-trees cease to grow--

"Nodding their heads, before us go, The merry minstrelsy."

They sing a salutation at every door, familiarly naming old and young by their Christian names; and the eyes that look upward from the vales to the hanging huts among the plats and cliffs, see the shadows of the dancers ever and anon crossing the light of the star-like window, and the merry music is heard like an echo dwelling in the sky. Across those humble thresholds often did we on Christmas-week nights of yore--wandering through our solitary silvan haunts, under the branches of trees within whose hollow trunks the squirrel slept--venture in, unasked perhaps, but not unwelcome, and, in the kindly spirit of the season, did our best to merrify the Festival by tale or song. And now that we behold them not, are all those woods, and cliffs, and rivers, and tarns, and lakes, as beautiful as when they softened and brightened beneath our living eyes, half-creating, as they gazed, the very world they wors.h.i.+pped! And are all those hearths as bright as of yore, without the shadow of our figure! And the roofs, do they ring as mirthfully, though our voice be forgotten. We hang over Westmoreland, an un.o.bserved--but observant star. Mountains, hills, rocks, knolls, vales, woods, groves, single trees, dwelling--all asleep! O Lakes! but we are indeed, by far too beautiful! O fortunate Isles! too fair for human habitation, fit abode for the Blest! It will not hide itself--it will not sink into the earth--it will rise; and risen, it will stand steady with its shadow in the overpowering moonlight, that ONE TREE! that ONE HOUSE!--and well might the sight of ye two together--were it harder--break our heart. But hard at all it is not--therefore it is but crushed.

Can it be that there we are utterly forgotten! No star hanging higher than the Andes in heaven--but sole-sitting at midnight in a small chamber--a melancholy man are we--and there seems a smile of consolation, O Wordsworth! on thy sacred Bust.

Alas! how many heavenly days, "seeming immortal in their depth of rest,"

have died and been forgotten! Treacherous and ungrateful is our memory even of bliss that overflowed our being as light our habitation. Our spirit's deepest intercommunion with nature has no place in her records--blanks are there that ought to have been painted with imperishable imagery, and steeped in sentiment fresh as the morning on life's golden hills. Yet there is mercy in this dispensation--for who can bear to behold the light of bliss re-arising from the past on the ghastlier gloom of present misery? The phantoms that will not come when we call on them to comfort us, are too often at our side when in our anguish we could almost pray that they might be reburied in oblivion.

Such hauntings as these are not as if they were visionary--they come and go like forms and shapes still imbued with life. Shall we vainly stretch out our arms to embrace and hold them fast, or as vainly seek to intrench ourselves by thought of this world against their visitation?

The soul in its sickness knows not whether it be the duty of love to resign itself to indifference or to despair. Shall it enjoy life, they being dead? Shall we, the survivors, for yet a little while, walk in other companions.h.i.+p out into the day, and let the sunbeams settle on their heads as they used to do, or cover them with dust and ashes, and show to those in heaven that love for them is now best expressed by remorse and penitence?

Sometimes we have fears about our memory--that it is decaying; for, lately, many ordinary yet interesting occurrences and events, which we regarded at the time with pain or pleasure, have been slipping away almost into oblivion, and have often alarmed us of a sudden by their return, not to any act of recollection, but of themselves, sometimes wretchedly out of place and season, the mournful obtruding upon the merry, and worse, the merry upon the mournful--confusion, by no fault of ours, of piteous and gladsome faces--tears where smiles were a duty as well as a delight, and smiles where nature demanded, and religion hallowed, a sacrifice of tears.

For a good many years we have been tied to town in winter by fetters as fine as frost-work filigree, which we could not break without destroying a whole world of endearment. That seems an obscure image; but it means what the Germans would call in English--our winter environment. We are imprisoned in a net; yet we can see it when we choose--just as a bird can see, when he chooses, the wires of his cage, that are invisible in his happiness, as he keeps hopping and fluttering about all day long, or haply dreaming on his perch with his poll under his plumes--as free in confinement as if let loose into the boundless sky. That seems an obscure image too; but we mean, in truth, the prison unto which we doom ourselves no prison is; and we have improved on that idea, for we have built our own--and are prisoner, turnkey, and jailer all in one, and 'tis noiseless as the house of sleep. Or what if we declare that Christopher North is a king in his palace, with no subjects but his own thoughts--his rule peaceful over those lights and shadows--and undisputed to reign over them his right divine.

The opening year in a town, now answers in all things to our heart's desire. How beautiful the smoky air! The clouds have a homely look as they hang over the happy families of houses, and seem as if they loved their birthplace;--all unlike those heartless clouds that keep _stravaiging_ over mountain-tops, and have no domicile in the sky! Poets speak of living rocks, but what is their life to that of houses? Who ever saw a rock with eyes--that is, with windows? Stone-blind all, and stone-deaf, and with hearts of stone; whereas who ever saw a house without eyes--that is, windows? Our own is an Argus; yet the good old Conservative grudges not the a.s.sessed taxes--his optics are as cheerful as the day that lends them light, and they love to salute the setting sun, as if a hundred beacons, level above level, were kindled along a mountain side. He might safely be p.r.o.nounced a madman who preferred an avenue of trees to a street. Why, trees have no chimneys; and, were you to kindle a fire in the hollow of an oak, you would soon be as dead as a Druid. It won't do to talk to us of sap, and the circulation of sap. A grove in winter, hole and branch--leaves it has none--is as dry as a volume of sermons. But a street, or a square, is full of "vital sparks of heavenly flame" as a volume of poetry, and the heart's blood circulates through the system like rosy wine.

But a truce to comparisons; for we are beginning to feel contrition for our crime against the country, and, with humbled head and heart, we beseech you to pardon us--ye rocks of Pavey-Ark, the pillared palaces of the storms--ye clouds, now wreathing a diadem for the forehead of Helvellyn--ye trees, that hang the shadows of your undying beauty over the "one perfect chrysolite," of blessed Windermere!

Our meaning is transparent now as the hand of an apparition waving peace and good-will to all dwellers in the land of dreams. In plainer but not simpler words (for words are like flowers, often rich in their simplicity--witness the Lily, and Solomon's Song)--Christian people all, we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New-Year, in town or in country--or in s.h.i.+ps at sea.

KEEPING CHRISTMAS

Romans, xiv, 6: _He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord,_

HENRY VAN d.y.k.e

[From "The Spirit of Christmas."]

It is a good thing to observe Christmas day. The mere marking of times and seasons, when men agree to stop work and make merry together, is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one to feel the supremacy of the common life over the individual life. It reminds a man to set his own little watch, now and then, by the great clock of humanity which runs on sun time.

But there is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.

Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you; to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world; to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground; to see that your fellowmen are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy; to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life; to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness--are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children; to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear in their hearts; to try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open--are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world--stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death--and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas.

And if you keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone.

MARK WELL MY HEAVY DOLEFUL TALE

ANONYMOUS

Mark well my heavy doleful tale, For Twelfth-day now is come, And now I must no longer sing, And say no words but mum; For I perforce must take my leave Of all my dainty cheer, Plum-porridge, roast beef, and minced pies, My strong ale and my beer.

Kind-hearted Christmas, now adieu, For I with thee must part, And for to take my leave of thee Doth grieve me at the heart; Thou wert an ancient housekeeper, And mirth with meat didst keep, But thou art going out of town, Which makes me for to weep.

G.o.d knoweth whether I again Thy merry face shall see, Which to good-fellows and the poor That was so frank and free.

Thou lovedst pastime with thy heart, And eke good company; Pray hold me up for fear I swoon, For I am like to die.

Come, butler, fill a brimmer up To cheer my fainting heart, That to old Christmas I may drink Before he doth depart; And let each one that's in this room With me likewise condole, And for to cheer their spirits sad Let each one drink a bowl.

And when the same it hath gone round Then fall unto your cheer, For you do know that Christmas time It comes but once a year.

But this good draught which I have drunk Hath comforted my heart, For I was very fearful that My stomach would depart.

Thanks to my master and my dame That doth such cheer afford; G.o.d bless them, that each Christmas they May furnish thus their board.

My stomach having come to me, I mean to have a bout, Intending to eat most heartily; Good friends, I do not flout.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI

In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter Long ago.

Our G.o.d, Heaven cannot hold him Nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away, When he comes to reign.

In the bleak mid-winter A stable-place sufficed The Lord G.o.d Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels May have gathered there; Cherubim and seraphim Thronged the air.

But only His Mother, In her maiden bliss, Wors.h.i.+pped her Beloved With a kiss.

What can I give Him, Poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb; If I were a wise man, I would do my part,-- Yet what I can I give Him, Give my heart.

THE GLORIOUS SONG OF OLD

EDMUND H. SEARS