Oh Christmas is coming again, you say,
    And you long for the things he is bringing;
  But the costliest gift may not gladden the day,
    Nor help on the merry bells ringing
  Some getting is losing, you understand,
    Some hoarding is far from saving;
  What you hold in your hand may slip from your hand,
    There is something better than having;
      We are richer for what we give;
      And only by giving we live.

  Your last year’s presents are scattered and gone;
    You have almost forgot who gave them;
  But the loving thoughts you bestow live on
    As long as you choose to have them. 
  Love, love is your riches, though ever so poor;
    No money can buy that treasure;
  Yours always, from robber and rust secure,
    Your own, without stint or measure;
      It is only love that we can give;
      It is only by loving we live.

  For who is it smiles through the Christmas morn—­
    The Light of the wide creation? 
  A dear little Child in a stable born,
    Whose love is the world’s salvation. 
  He was poor on earth, but He gave us all
    That can make our life worth the living;
  And happy the Christmas day we call
    That is spent, for His sake, in giving;
     He shows us the way to live,
     Like Him.  Let us love and give!

—­Lucy Larcom

* * * * *

=A Merry Christmas Eve.=

  It chanced upon the merry, merry Christmas eve
    I went sighing past the church across the moorland dreary: 
  “Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave,
    And the bells but mock the wailing round, they sing so cheery. 
  How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again? 
    Still in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary
  The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain,
    Till earth is full of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be cheery.”

  Then arose a joyous clamor from the wild fowl on the mere,
    Beneath the stars, across the snow, like clear bells ringing,
  And a voice within cried:  “Listen!—­Christmas carols even here! 
    Though thou be dumb, yet o’er their work the stars and snows are singing. 
  Blind!  I live, I love, I reign; and all the nations through
    With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing;
  Do thou fulfill thy work, but as yon wild fowl do,
    Thou wilt hear no less the wailing, yet hear through it angels singing.”

—­Charles Kingsley.

* * * * *

=The Christmas Stocking.=

  In the ghostly light I’m sitting, musing of long dead Decembers,
  While the fire-clad shapes are flitting in and out among the embers
  On my hearthstone in mad races, and I marvel, for in seeming
  I can dimly see the faces and the scenes of which I’m dreaming.