knee;
Of innocent faces upturned once again
In awe and joy to listen to the tale
Of God made man, and in a manger laid—­
May soften, purify, and raise the soul
From selfish cares, and growing lust of gain,
And phantoms of this dream which some call life,
Toward the eternal facts; for here or there,
Summer or winter, ’twill be Christmas Day.

Blest day, which aye reminds us, year by year,
What ’tis to be a man:  to curb and spurn
The tyrant in us; that ignobler self
Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute,
And owns no good save ease, no ill save pain,
No purpose, save its share in that wild war
In which, through countless ages, living things
Compete in internecine greed.—­Ah God! 
Are we as creeping things, which have no Lord? 
That we are brutes, great God, we know too well;
Apes daintier-featured; silly birds who flaunt
Their plumes unheeding of the fowler’s step;
Spiders, who catch with paper, not with webs;
Tigers, who slay with cannon and sharp steel,
Instead of teeth and claws;—­all these we are. 
Are we no more than these, save in degree? 
No more than these; and born but to compete—­
To envy and devour, like beast or herb;
Mere fools of nature; puppets of strong lusts,
Taking the sword, to perish with the sword
Upon the universal battle-field,
Even as the things upon the moor outside? 
   The heath eats up green grass and delicate flowers,
The pine eats up the heath, the grub the pine,
The finch the grub, the hawk the silly finch;
And man, the mightiest of all beasts of prey,
Eats what he lists; the strong eat up the weak,
The many eat the few; great nations, small;
And he who cometh in the name of all—­
He, greediest, triumphs by the greed of all;
And, armed by his own victims, eats up all: 
While ever out of the eternal heavens
Looks patient down the great magnanimous God,
Who, Maker of all worlds, did sacrifice
All to Himself?  Nay, but Himself to one;
Who taught mankind on that first Christmas Day,
What ’twas to be a man; to give, not take;
To serve, not rule; to nourish, not devour;
To help, not crush; if need, to die, not live. 
   O blessed day, which givest the eternal lie
To self, and sense, and all the brute within;
Oh, come to us, amid this war of life;
To hall and hovel, come; to all who toil
In senate, shop, or study; and to those
Who, sundered by the wastes of half a world,
Ill-warned, and sorely tempted, ever face
Nature’s brute powers, and men unmanned to brutes—­
Come to them, blest and blessing, Christmas Day. 
Tell them once more the tale of Bethlehem;
The kneeling shepherds, and the Babe Divine: 
And keep them men indeed, fair Christmas Day.

Eversley, 1868.

SEPTEMBER 21, 1870 {325}

Speak low, speak little; who may sing
   While yonder cannon-thunders boom? 
Watch, shuddering, what each day may bring: 
   Nor ‘pipe amid the crack of doom.’