GIFTS FOR ST. NICHOLAS [A]

Grieve not, O Santa Claus, who fills Each stocking, box and tree; Nor think, most desolate of saints, None bring good gifts to thee. We place no candles in thy crypt, No gold upon thy shrine,— Thou bringest us the frankincense, The tapers and the wine. But rarer gifts, good Nicholas, Than these, thy children bring, When up and down an echoing world The Christmas bells all ring. We bring our brightest, truest love To crown thy happy brows; No monarch wears a coronet So light as holly-boughs. We bring our gayest, fairest hopes, With smiling memories spun; So rich a robe has never shone Earth's proudest king upon. We bring our trust, our childhood faith, And place it in thy hand; No jeweled scepter has such power To rule on sea or land. Then stay, O dear St. Nicholas! Look on thy heaped-up shrine; Our hearts, our hopes, our memories, Our trusts, our faith are thine! There's not in all the calendar One saint whose altars shine With such gay throngs of worshipers, Such precious gifts, as thine!