HEAVY hearts, your jubilee
Droops about the Christmas Tree.
Sudden sighs cut off the laughter,
For a haunting pain comes after
All your gallant glee,
– Pain for your soldiers far away to-night,
(O cloud that darkens on the Christmas star!)
Sons, husbands, those who wreathed your world with light,
Far, far, so far.
Be comforted! They never were so near.
In life’s deep center of self-sacrifice
You meet with vision clear.
There in love’s purest paradise
The touch of soul on soul is close and dear.
Not to-night shall soft cheeks glow
Where the Druid mistletoe
Weaves its charm, while hollies twinkle;
For the lads in some grim wrinkle
Of the earth crouch low.
Hard is their Christmas in the aching trench,
Or in the listening darkness mounting guard,
Haggard with cold and sick with creeping stench,
– Hard, hard, so hard.
Be comforted! That hardness is their pride.
Salute the strength that can endure the stress
Of such a Christmastide.
Our earth made beautiful shall bless
Their stern young manhood nobly testified.
Silver chimes are on the air,
Sweet and blithe-too blithe to bear;
And what singing hearth rejoices,
Missing the belov
(Katharine Lee Bates)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Life Poems, Light Poems, Soul Poems, Nature Poems, Christianity Poems, Beauty Poems, Pain Poems, Sons Poems, Pride Poems, Laughter PoemsBased on Keywords: hollies, testified, christmastide