THE HOLYNIGHTS.
Reading edition
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BY HENRY MORFORD.
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Some say that ’gainst the time that season comes
Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated
The bird of dawning singeth all night long,
And then they say no sprite dares stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome then, no planets strike,
No fairy takes or witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.
Hamlet.
Hushed be the voice of mirthfulness,
And stilled be the plaintive tones of care,
That from too many a heart recess
Go forth to float on the midnight air;
It is no time for the wild excess,
No time for the loose unbridled reign
That passion gives to her votaries
When they sever away the golden chain.
Stilled on the ears of the seraph choir
Let the lingering hymns of the season go,
As they sweep their hands o’er the golden wire
To the anthem of love and peace below;
And let us keep in a holy mood
The coming hours of that sacred time
When the word went forth for the hush of blood
And the passing knell for the soul of crime!
When the hosts of the upper region stirred
That another star came forth to shine,
And the rush of an angel’s wing was heard
O’er the moonlit plains of Palestine,
And a softer light o’er the earth was flung
And the pale stars waxed no longer dim,
And forth on a thousand harps outrung
The rising notes of the angels’ hymn.
The same bright stars that then looked down
With a guardian watch o’er hill and plain,
Unfading gems in the starry crown
Glittering on in the blue remain,
And the solemn awe that crept them round
As they watched their flocks that holy time,
An echo with us to-night has found
In the new-born light of another clime.
It has been felt this many a year,
The sacred spell of the season’s death,
And the brighter glow of the starry sphere
As it came that time with the angels’ breath,
For brighter yet the stars gleam out
As the noisome vapor shrinks away
From the open glade that it hung about
Darkened and damp this many a day.
List how the spirit-breathings come
Upon our ears from the voice sublime
Of him who ruled in the spirits’ home,
Who wrote and sang for the end of time!
Hark how he tells when the time is near,
The bird of the dawn sings all night long
And the fairy legions disappear
When he comes abroad with his matin song.
No spirits forth, nor the rank compound
That glows with the witches’ midnight toil,
No deeps of the forest-close resound
With the wizard shriek and the caldron boil.
No planets chill the warm heart’s blood
With the mockery of a demon fire,
No vapors veil with a sickly shroud
The moss-grown top of the old church spire,—
For he who stood in that dreadful watch
On the gray rampart of Elsinore
Told how they ceased from their revel catch
And their reign at the Christmas time was o’er;
We feel it now, as he felt it then,
That the air is full of holiness,
And we need not forms from the earth again
Of the starry hosts to guard and bless.
Then stilled on the ears of the seraph choir
Let the lingering hymns of the season go,
As they sweep their hands o’er the golden wire
To the anthem of love and peace below;
And let us keep in a holy mood
The passing hours of that sacred time
When the word went forth for the hush of blood
And the passing knell for the soul of crime!