O golden Christmas days of yore! 
    In sweet anticipation
  I lived their joys for days before
    Their glorious realization;
      And on the dawn
      Of Christmas morn
  My childish heart was knocking
      A wild tattoo,
      As ’twould break through,
  As I unhung my stocking.

  Each simple gift that came to hand,
    How marvelous I thought it! 
  A treasure straight from wonderland,
    For Santa Claus had brought it. 
      And at my cries
      Of glad surprise
  The others all came flocking
      To share my glee
      And view with me
  The contents of the stocking

  Years sped—­I left each well-loved scene
    In Northern wilds to roam,
  And there, ’mid tossing pine-trees green,
    I made myself a home. 
      We numbered three
      And blithe were we,
  At adverse fortune mocking,
      And Christmas-tide
      By our fireside
  Found hung the baby’s stocking.

  Alas! within our home to-night
    No sweet young voice is ringing,
  And through its silent rooms no light. 
    Free, childish step is springing. 
      The wild winds rave
      O’er baby’s grave
  Where plumy pines are rocking
      And crossed at rest
      On marble breast
  The hands that filled my stocking

  With misty eyes but steady hand
    I raise my Christmas chalice;
  Here’s to the children of the land
    In cabin or in palace;
      May each one hold
      The key of gold,
  The gates of glee unlocking,
      And hands be found
      The whole world round
  To fill the Christmas stocking

Clarence H. Pearson in The Ladies’ Home Journal.

* * * * *

=Christmas Hymn.=

(During this recitation let the piano be played very softly in running chords that resolve into the key of a Christmas carol which is taken up and sung by the entire school at the end of the poem.)

  Sing, Christmas bells! 
    Say to the earth this is the morn
  Whereon our Saviour King is born;
    Sing to all men-the bond, the free,
  The rich, the poor, the high, the low,
    The little child that sports in glee,
  The aged folk that tottering go,—­
      Proclaim the morn
      That Christ is born,
  That saveth them and saveth me!

  Sing angel host! 
    Sing of the stars that God has placed
  Above the manger in the east. 
    Sing of the glories of the night,
  The Virgin’s sweet humility,
    The Babe with kingly robes bedight,—­
  Sing to all men where’er they be
      This Christmas morn
      For Christ is born,
  That saveth them and saveth me!

—­Eugene Field.

* * * * *

=Bells Across the Snow.=