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Title: Christmas Is Coming
Author: J. C. Manning [
More Titles by Manning]
Christmas is coming with merry laugh,
With a merry laugh and a joyful shout,
And the tidings are flung with an iron tongue
From a thousand steeples pealing out;
Hang up the holly--the mistletoe hang;
Bedeck every nook round the old fireside;
Make bright every hearth--let the joy-bells clang
With a warm-hearted welcome to Christmas-tide.
Christmas is coming! But some will see
By the old fireside a vacant place;
And a vision will flit through the festive glee
Of an absent--a never-returning face;
And a voice that was music itself last year
Will be mournfully missed in the even-song;
And children will speak, with a gathering tear,
Of the virtues which now to the dead belong.
Christmas is coming! Look back o'er the past:
Is there nought to forgive? Is there nought to forget?
Have we seized all the chances of life that were placed
In our path: or in this have we nought to regret?
Have we fought on life's battle-ground manfully--true,
While success, like a butterfly, flew from our reach?
Have we pressed in pursuit of the prize as it flew?
Has the Past, in its dying, no lesson to teach?
Christmas is coming! But who shall say
That at Christmas-time they again may meet?
For graves lie thick in the crowded way;
And we elbow Death in the open street
Let Folly embitter the festival hour
With a tongue that would injure--a heart that would hate!
True wisdom is blest with a nobler dower:
In another year it may be too late.
Christmas is coming! The wealthy will sit
In purple, fine linen, and sumptuous state;
'Twere well in their plenty they should not forget
The poor that stand meek at the outer gate.
For who can foreshadow the changes of life?
See! yesterday's King is an outcast to-day;
Success comes in time to the strong in the strife;
And Fortune's a game at which paupers can play.
Christmas is coming? The trader will quail
Over ledgers unsquared--and accounts overdue:
And his pen fain would tell all the sorrowful tale
Which his heart, full of fear, has not courage to do!
Had he all that is owing, how happy his heart;
How buoyant his footstep--how joyous his face;
But his debtors from gold as their life's blood will part;
And their hoard lies untouched o'er a brother's disgrace.
But Christmas is coming with merry laugh,
Amid pain, amid pleasure, with joyful shout,
And the tidings are flung with an iron tongue
From a thousand steeples pealing out.
Hang up the holly--the mistletoe hang;
Bedeck every nook round the old fireside:
Let us bury our care: let the joy-bells clang
With a warm-hearted welcome to Christmas-tide.
[The end]
J. C. Manning's poem: Christmas Is Coming
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