Classic Poem

A MID a spacious town
The Christmas lights are blazing
Beneath the cold night's frown
A foreign child is gazing
Sadly up and down.

In every house he sees
Fond fingers intertwining;
Through lamp-illumined trees
The bright warm rooms are shining:
Ah! bitter sights are these!

He weeping speaks: “To-night,
To every child is given
A Christmas tree and light;
But I by earth and heaven
Am now deserted quite.

“A sister's gentle hand
Had given me all I needed,
If I at home did stand;
But here I am unheeded,
In this cold foreign land.

“Will none the orphan see,
And let him in for pity?
O God! and can it be,
That in this crowded city
There is no place for me?

“Will no kind hand relieve
The orphan's deep dejection?
Alas! I must receive
But only the reflection
Of this strange Christmas Eve!”

He taps with fingers thin
On window and on shutter;
They hear not, for the din,
The weak words he doth utter,
Nor let the orphan in.

The father's lessons mild
The listening boy's ear drinketh;
The Christmas gifts are piled
By mother's hands. None thinketh
Of that poor orphan child.

“O Christ! my Saviour dear,
No father and no mother
Have I my heart to cheer;
Be all to me: no other
Consoler have I here.”

Cold, cold his small hand grows,
He rubs his frozen fingers;
He shivers in his clothes,
And in the white street lingers,
With eyes that will not close.

There cometh with a light,
Which through the dark street breaketh,
In robes of simple white,
Another child, who speaketh
These sweet words of delight:

“Behold thy Christ in me,
Again a child's form taking—
A little child like thee;
Though all are thee forsaking
By me thou shalt not be.

“My word's impartial boon
I waft o'er hill and valley;
I send my aid as soon
To this poor wretched alley,
As to yon gay saloon.

“My hands, with light divine,
Thy Christmas tree shall kindle.
Thou'lt see, compared with thine,
All other trees shall dwindle,
How beautiful they shine.”

To Heaven his little hand
The infant Saviour raiseth—
There doth a great tree stand,
Whose star-lit branch outblazeth
All o'er the azure land.

The child's heart bounds with glee,
At all the starry tapers;
His eyes grow bright to see,
Through Heaven's transparent vapours,
That glorious Christmas tree!

Before his wondering eyes
A glorious vision shifted—
A dream of Paradise!
For Angel hands uplifted
The orphan to the skies.

Within that blessed sphere
A home he now hath gotten—
Even with his Saviour dear:
There soon is all forgotten
That he hath suffered here.