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Hope for a Happy Christmas

What would you, if you knew how,
Think of Christmas’ past?
Would they then, by comparison to now,
Merit a sad contrast?
The feeling that stirs us all from sleep
Would herald a bright new dawn,
Where shepherds are angels with flocks to keep
And baby Christs can still be born.
 
A world of stillness, a world made new,
Crisp and unsullied by men.
A spider’s web is hung with dew,
And carols drift up from the Seine.
The Danube, as well, warbles along
Although it is all iced over,
Children shriek as they skate to its song,
And stumble, and tumble, and fall over.
 
Cinnamon rings and the smell of spices
Rise from candles, lit for joy,
Candle flame flickers and entices,
A look shared between girl and boy.
They will not tell me where he’s gone,
Only he’s exchanged snow for sand,
His life is a thread to be cut or spun,
Far away in some desert land.
 
The candles gutter and rise and start
In the sharp, Equilatorial breeze.
One eye blinks open, a lurch of the heart,
Is He truly deaf to our pleas?
Oh God, let those flames soar ever higher,
Let me hear them sing and shout,
So this church is likened to a pyre,
Oh God, do not let them go out.
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