Classic Poem

With Morning's first blush our two little ones woke —
Like twin roses they laughed in their bed;
For the day and their rest both smilingly broke,
And their cheeks, like the dawning, were red.

Soon a patter of footsteps we heard on the stair,
Light as summer rain dropping from eaves —
Each little foot, blushing because it was bare,
Seemed a rosebud with five open leaves.

Away to the hearth-stone they stole on tip-toe,
And their laugh was a glad Christmas hymn,
Their hearts were so full that they must overflow,
And their stockings were chock to the brim.

There were pea-guns and whistles, and harlequin-jacks
That would dance though a monk pulled the string,
And crumpets and trumpets and all the knickknacks
That Kriss Kringle is certain to bring.

Such blasts of tin trumpets, such volleys of peas!
You 'd have thought that they stormed a Redan:
But our rampart, the sofa, they carried with ease,
And Tabby, its garrison, ran.

Now the chimney at daybreak had plagued us with smoke, —
As smokers, alas, often do, —
And here was a story to tell the small folk,
When they wondered what troubled the flue.

For we told them the steeds that Saint Nicholas drove,
Left standing outside in the snow,
Perhaps snuggled in, filling chimneys above,
While their master filled stockings below.

The little ones fully accepted this creed, —
As soon they'd have doubted their prayers, —
And I envied their faith; we old Gentiles have need
Of a credence as ready as theirs.

When we doubt what was dear to our childish belief, —
For this is the wisdom of men, —
Thinking that to be wisdom that only is grief, —
Indeed, are we wiser than then?

For oft when my soul trails her wings in the dust,
And would rest from the struggle without,
I ask of myself: Is it folly to trust?
Is it wisdom to question and doubt?