Miracle, and Other Poems

<h2 id="id00083" style="margin-top: 4em">CHRISTMAS</h2> <p id="id00084">With all the little children, far and near,<br/> God wot! to-day we'll sing a song of cheer!<br/> To rosy lips and eyes, that know not guile,<br/> We one and all will give back smile for smile;<br/> And for the sake of all the small and gay<br/> We will be children also for to-day.<br/></p> <p id="id00085">Holly we'll hang, with mistletoe above!<br/> God wot! to-day we'll sing a song of love!<br/> And we will trip on merry heel and toe<br/> With all the fair who lightly come and go;<br/> We will deny the years that lie behind<br/> And say that age is only in the mind.<br/></p> <p id="id00086">And to the needy, in whatever place,<br/> God wot! to-day we'll lend a hand of grace;<br/> For where is he who hath not need himself,<br/> Although he dine on silver or on delf?<br/> And we who pass and nod this Christmas Day<br/> May never meet again on life's highway.<br/></p> <p id="id00087">But when the lights are lit, and day has flown—<br/> God wot! there will be some who sit alone;<br/> Who sit and gaze into the embers' glow,<br/> And watch strange things that flitter to and fro—<br/> The ghosts of dreams; and faces—long unseen;<br/> Shadows of shadows—things that once have been.<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />