A FEEL IN THE CHRIS’MAS-AIR
They’s a kind o’ feel in the air,
to me.
When the Chris’mas-times
sets in.
That’s about as much of a mystery
As ever I’ve run ag’in!—
Fer instunce, now, whilse I gain in weight
And gineral health, I swear
They’s a goneness somers I can’t
quite state—
A kind o’ feel in the air.
[Illustration]
They’s a feel in the Chris’mas-air goes
right
To the spot where a man lives at!—
It gives a feller a’ appetite—
They ain’t no doubt about that!—
And yit they’s somepin’—I
don’t know what—
That follers me, here and there,
And ha’nts and worries and spares me not—
A kind o’ feel in the air!
They’s a feel, as I say, in the air that’s
jest
As blame-don sad as sweet!—
In the same ra-sho as I feel the best
And am spryest on my feet,
They’s allus a kind o’ sort of a’
ache
That I can’t lo-cate no-where;—
But it comes with Chris’mas, and no mistake!—
A kind o’ feel in the air.
Is it the racket the childern raise?—
W’y, no!—God bless
’em!—no!—
Is it the eyes and the cheeks ablaze—
Like my own wuz, long ago?—
Is it the bleat o’ the whistle and beat
O’ the little toy-drum and blare
O’ the horn?—No! no!—it
is jest the sweet—
The sad-sweet feel in the air.
[Illustration]
AS CREATED
There’s a space for good to bloom in
Every heart of man or woman,—
And however wild or human,
Or however brimmed with gall,
Never heart may beat without it;
And the darkest heart to doubt it
Has something good about it
After
all.
[Illustration]
WHERE-AWAY
O the Lands of Where-Away!
Tell us—tell us—where are they?
Through the darkness and the dawn
We have journeyed on and on—
From the cradle to the cross—
From possession unto loss.—
Seeking still, from day to day,
For the Lands of Where-Away.
When our baby-feet were first
Planted where the daisies burst,
And the greenest grasses grew
In the fields we wandered through,—
On, with childish discontent,
Ever on and on we went,
Hoping still to pass, some day,
O’er the verge of Where-Away.
Roses laid their velvet lips
On our own, with fragrant sips;
But their kisses held us not,
All their sweetness we forgot;—
Though the brambles in our track
Plucked at us to hold us back—
“Just ahead,” we used to say,
“Lie the Lands of Where-Away.”
Children at the pasture-bars,
Through the dusk, like glimmering stars,
Waved their hands that we should bide
With them over eventide;
Down the dark their voices failed
Falteringly, as they hailed,
And died into yesterday—
Night ahead and—Where-Away?