PROEM THE SNOW ON CHRISTMAS-EVE.
LAKE after flake is chasing swift,
Snow, snow, whispering snow;
Oh! flitter and flutter, oh, drive and drift,
Flow, flow,
Heaven-born snow!
Snow, snow,
Never weary nor cease,
Seraph-wing snow,
You descend to the earth like a Vision of Peace
And the moon-rays lie in the hyaline sky
As you glimmer and shimmer, and mote and float by, Like thoughts of the Angels that 'wander on high!'
Snow, snow,
You speckle the singers
And staunch old bell-ringers,
Who troop all a-row
To the church mossed and still
Apeak of the hill,—
Whither they go
With sad-green mistletoe
And red-studded holly,
Rimy, but jolly,—
Ah! Christmas is coming I know.
A Star stands in the East,
Like Nature's High-Priest,
As the bells ripple low,
Snow-soft-falling snow
As the bells tripple low,
Tripple low.
The stern-crested mountain so high,
The little green brooklet so low,
You touch with pale fingers and purify,
Oh! blessed and blessing white snow!
The moon's light empearleth, the crisp breezes blow,
The church-panes, deft-dighted,
Are all inly lighted,
Ruddying snow!
And now the bells ring
And their harmonies fling
O'er the hush in a troll of wild mirth,
And the carollers sing,
Like young birds just a-wing,
Glory to God! to Christ our New King!
And Peace and Goodwill upon Earth!'
'Peace and Goodwill!' ah! well-a-day,
How sadly we act and how solemnly pray!
Peace and Goodwill-why, frail Amy there,
All deathly her face and all whitened her hair,
Was once of this hamlet the Peace-the sweet saint
Set apart, as it seemed, from assoil and attaint;
A joy tracked her footsteps-virtues upgleamed
Through the tides of her being like lilies enstreamed.
Her voice was as fresh as a summer-morn breeze
When it shaketh the gold-cups and trills in the trees ;
Her face was so open-browed, clear-eyed, and frank,
That aslant it the shadows but glanced and then shrank.
The whole village loved her, and she was the pride
Of father and mother . . . ah me! side by side
In the churchyard which marbles the little hill's crest
They lie, where the weary at last find their rest!
Yes, Amy was fair, simply fair as the day,
And the Squire was young, and conly, and gay:
He won her and wore her-and flung her away!
Oh! the story is old, just as old as man's crime,
Or village-maid's trust: And one Christmas-time
(Well-well I remember the cold glittering night,
When each tree pointed at her mockingly white,
And the Squire's new Beauty-cold-glittering too--
Had gone home true-Wife, as your cold beauties do!)
Amy moved from the village, and huddled away,
Crying low like a lamb . . .
'Tis again Christmas Day :
Since Amy departed but one year has fled,
Yet father and mother are now with the dead.
Their rough mound to-night is palled with snow,
But there, by sad instinct, doth lorn Amy go,
And boweth her head and wringeth her hands,
And dumb in the churchyard, like Naomi, stands,
As the bells wake in gladness, the carollers shout,
And CHRISTMAS the spire clangs cordially out.
She had heard of the loss of the dear ones-had hied
To see their last resting-place once ere she died;
For she knew that in life she had fled them in shame,
And near them, in death, could no burial claim.
Across their froze grave, in a strange dreamy quest,
She gazed as though on to the Land of the Blest,
Where ONE stands in raiment as spotless as snow
Who drank of our sorrow, partook of our woe.
And, set in weird Twilight, the Past seems to swell-
That twilight which shadows but sharpens as well-
And Amy weeps sore, for the cheerful Old Days
Troop past in a mournful and hallowèd haze,
And the Old Friends peer at her with sorrowful look,
Glassing a battle of Love and Rebuke.
O'er the mound, like a willow, lost Amy bends low,
But anon whitely blends with the white-drifting snow.
There for a while doth she anguish and weep
While the bells' pulsings onwardly, circlingly creep,
In wavelets of sound, lapsing faint and more faint,
Like musical murmurs from merciful saint.
'Absolve me, O Christ !-nor blot out his name,
Who led me to sin and left me to shame!'
This weary, thrice-weary and bitter refrain
As she stands by the white heap doth poor Amy plain. 'Ah, cleanse me, O Christ! but cancel his blame
Who led me to sin and left me to shame!'
Now away move the singers (thick falls the snow!)
Back to their cots, singing still as they go;
And the village wife spying the church-panes grow dim,
The red log strikes home, the ingle sweeps trim,
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