Blair Collection > Poems and songs

27
A CHRISTMAS SONG.
One look in which tlie souls have met
Can make a stranger's image prove
A changeless bliss within our breasts,
Embalmed in its own silent love.
A voice wakes in our hearts a choi'd
"We ne'er again can hush to rest ;
Its music like some mystic psalm
Comes whispering o'er life's cheerless waste.
A CHRISTMAS SONG.
Cold winter from his icy throne was banished,
And spring's pale beauties came in joy to reign ;
The summer roses sweetly bloomed, then vanished,
And winter sways his blighting power again.
Another page of life's brief record written,
The same old mingling of our smiles and tears ;
Of joys by sorrows from their bowers beaten,
Of love and gladness chased by cares and fears.
The bridal pomp forgotten on the morrow
Amidst the sable pageantry of woe ;
Next day love's kisses on the cheek of sorrow
Making joy's embers into brightness glow.
Change is the law by nature's changeless order.
But sin is not ; and, in the race we've run,
We've filled the pages of the stern Recorder
With wrong things cherished, duties left undone.
We've joyed to sit in judgment on another,
And cast our stones in Pharisaic pride ;
Forgetting, in our zeal to slay a brother,
Our own Cain hearts with lusts uncrucified.
Our sword and shield laid down, at honour's peril,
To some vain idol, lightly to carouse ;
Or lost, through listlessness, the victor's laurel
That angel hands held ready for our brows.