When back from severed shore and shore,
  And over seas that vainly part,
  The scattered embers of the heart
Glow round the parent hearth once more.

When those who now are anxious men,
  Forget their growing years and cares;
  Forget the time-flakes on their hairs,
And laugh, light-hearted boys again.

When those who now are wedded wives,
  By children of their own embraced,
  Recall their early joys, and taste
Anew the childhood of their lives.

And the old people—­the good sire
  And kindly parent-mother—­glow
  To feel their children’s children throw
Fresh warmth around the Christmas fire.

When in the sweet colloquial din,
  Unheard the sullen sleet-winds shout;
  And though the winter rage without,
The social summer reigns within.

But in this wondrous world of ours
  Are other circling kindred chords,
  Binding poor harmless beasts and birds,
And the fair family of flowers.

That family that meet to-day
  From many a foreign field and glen,
  For what is Christmas-tide with men
Is with the flowers the time of May.

Back to the meadows of the West,
  Back to their natal fields they come;
  And as they reach their wished-for home,
The Mother folds them to her breast.

And as she breathes, with balmy sighs,
  A fervent blessing over them,
  The tearful, glistening dews begem
The parents’ and the children’s eyes.

She spreads a carpet for their feet,
  And mossy pillows for their heads,
  And curtains round their fairy beds
With blossom-broidered branches sweet.

She feeds them with ambrosial food,
  And fills their cups with nectared wine;
  And all her choristers combine
To sing their welcome from the wood: 

And all that love can do is done,
  As shown to them in countless ways: 
  She kindles to the brighter blaze
The fireside of the world—­the sun.

And with her own soft, trembling hands,
  In many a calm and cool retreat,
  She laves the dust that soils their feet
In coming from the distant lands.

Or, leading down some sinuous path,
  Where the shy stream’s encircling heights
  Shut out all prying eyes, invites
Her lily daughters to the bath.

There, with a mother’s harmless pride,
  Admires them sport the waves among: 
  Now lay their ivory limbs along
The buoyant bosom of the tide.

Now lift their marble shoulders o’er
  The rippling glass, or sink with fear,
  As if the wind approaching near
Were some wild wooer from the shore.

Or else the parent turns to these,
  The younglings born beneath her eye,
  And hangs the baby-buds close by,
In wind-rocked cradles from the trees.

And as the branches fall and rise,
  Each leafy-folded swathe expands: 
  And now are spread their tiny hands,
And now are seen their starry eyes.