Christmas

The birth day of the Christ child dawneth slow         Out of the opal east in rosy flame,         As if a luminous picture in its frame--             A great cathedral window, toward the sun     Lifted a form divine, which still below         Stretched hands of benediction;--while the air         Swayed the bright aureole of the flowing hair     Which lit our upturned faces;--even so             Look on us from the heavens, divinest One     And let us hear through the slow moving years.     Long centuries of wrongs, and crimes, and tears,--         The echo of the angel's song again,         Peace and good will, good will and peace to men,     A little space make silence,--that our ears,             Filled with the din of toil and moil and pain     May catch the jubilant rapture of the skies,--     The glories of the choirs of paradise.     The hills still tremble when the thunders cease         Of the loud diapason,--and again     Through the rapt stillness steals the hymn of peace;         Melodious and sweet its far refrain     Dying in distance, as the shadows die     Of white wings vanished up the morning sky,         As farther still--and thinner--more remote--         A film of sound, the aerial voices float--     Peace and good will, good will and peace to men!