Bells Across the Snow

This poem may be recited by one pupil, or divided as follows:

First pupil:
Christmas, merry Christmas!
Is it really come again?
With its memories and greetings,
With its joys and with its pain
There’s a minor in the carol,
And a shadow in the light,
And a spray of cypress twining
With the holly wreath tonight.
And the hush is never broken
By laughter, light and low,
As we listen in the starlight
To the “bells across the snow.”

Second pupil:
Christmas, merry Christmas!
‘Tis not so very long
Since other voices blended
With the carol and the song!
If we could but hear them singing
As they are singing now,
If we could but see the radiance
Of the crown on each dear brow;
There would be no sigh to smother,
No hidden tear to flow,
As we listen in the starlight
To the “bells across the snow.”

Third pupil:
O Christmas, merry Christmas!
This never more can be;
We cannot bring again the days
Of our unshadowed glee.
But Christmas, happy Christmas,
Sweet herald of good will,
With holy songs of glory,
Brings holy gladness still.
For peace and hope may brighten,
And patient love may glow,
As we listen in the starlight
To the “bells across the snow.”
 

—F.R. Havergal

Christmas Time

Christmas time for boys and girls
Is a happy day,
For we go to grandmamma’s
And eat and sing and play.

Grandma does not say to us—
“Stop that horrid noise,”
‘Cause she understands we can’t,
When we’re “only boys.”

And she lets the girls play house,
In the garret old,
And when they strew things around,
Grandma doesn’t scold.

But we ought to pick them up,
Even on Christmas day,
For we shouldn’t make kind friends
Trouble with our play.

Yes, we love the Christmas time
Best of all the year,
We have waited for it long,
Now, at last, it’s here.

by M.N.B.