Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A CHRISTMAS STORY, by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A CHRISTMAS STORY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The windows and the garden door
Last Line: May o'er it soonest be.
Alternate Author Name(s): Houghton, 1st Baron; Houghton, Lord
Subject(s): Christmas; Legends; Nativity, The


THE windows and the garden door
Must now be closed for night,
And you, my little girl, no more
Can watch the snow-flakes white
Fall, like a silver net, before
The face of dying light.

Draw down the curtains every fold,
Let not a gap let in the cold,
Bring your low seat toward the fire,
And you shall have your heart's desire;
A story of that favourite book
In which you often steal a look,

Regretful not to understand
Words of a distant time and land; --
That small square book that seems so old
In tawny white and faded gold,
And which I could not leave to-day,
Even with the snow and you to play. --
It was on such a night as this,
Six hundred years ago,
The wind as loud and pitiless,
As loaded with the snow,
A night when you might start to meet
A friend in an accustomed street,
That a lone child went up and down
The pathways of an ancient town.
A little child, just such as you,
With eyes, though clouded, just as blue,
With just such long fine golden hair,
But wet and rough for want of care,
And just such tender tottering feet
Bare to the cold and stony street.

Alone! this fragile human flower,
Alone! at this unsightly hour,
A playful, joyful, peaceful form,
A creature of delight,
Become companion of the storm,
And phantom of the night!
No gentler thing is near, -- in vain
Its warm tears meet the frozen rain,
No watchful ears await its cries
On every name that well supplies
The childly nature with a sense
Of love and care and confidence;
It looks before, it looks behind,
And staggers with the weighty wind,
Till, terror overpowering grief,
And feeble as an autumn leaf,
It passes down the tide of air,
It knows not, thinks not, how or where.

Beneath a carven porch, before
An iron-belted oaken door,
The tempest drives the cowering child,
And rages on as hard and wild.
This is not shelter, though the sleet
Strikes heavier in the open street,
For, to that infant ear, a din
Of festive merriment within
Comes, by the contrast, sadder far
Than all the outer windy war,
With something cruel, something curst,
In each repeated laughter-burst;
A thread of constant cheerful light,
Drawn through the crevice on the sight,
Tells it of heat it cannot feel,
And all the fire-side bliss
That home's dear portals can reveal
On such a night as this.
How can those hands so small and frail,
Empassioned as they will, avail
Against that banded wall of wood
Standing in senseless hardihood
Between the warmth and love and mirth,
The comforts of the living earth,
And the lorn creature shivering there,
The plaything of the savage air?

We would not, of our own good will,
Believe in so much strength of ill,
Believe that life and sense are given
To any being under Heaven
Only to weep and suffer thus,
To suffer without sin
What would be for the worst of us
A bitter discipline.
Yet now the tiny hands no more
Are striking that unfeeling door;
Folded and quietly they rest,
As on a cherub's marble breast;
And from the guileless lips of woe
Are passing words confused and low,
Remembered fragments of a prayer,
Learned and repeated otherwhere,
With the blue summer overhead,
On a sweet mother's knee,
Beside the downy cradle-bed,
But always happily.
Though for those holy words the storm
Relaxes not its angry form,
The child no longer stands alone
Upon the inhospitable stone:
There now are two, -- one to the other
Like as a brother to twin-brother,
But the new-comer has an air
Of something wonderful and rare,
Something divinely calm and mild,
Something beyond a human child:
His eyes come through the thickening night
With a soft planetary light,
And from his hair there falls below
A radiance on the drifting snow,
And his untarnished childly bloom
Seems but the brighter for the gloom.

See what a smile of gentle grace
Expatiates slowly o'er his face!
As, with a mien of soft command,
He takes that numbed and squalid hand,
And with a voice of simple joy
And greeting as from boy to boy,
He speaks, "What do you at this door?
Why called you not on me before?
What like you best? that I should break
This sturdy barrier for your sake,
And let you in that you may share
The warmth and joy and cheerful fare; --
Or will you trust to me alone,
And heeding not the windy moan
Nor the cold rain nor lightning-brand,
Go forward with me, hand in hand?
Within this house, if e'er on earth,
You will find love and peace and mirth;
And there may rest for many a day,
While I am on mine open way;
And should your heart to me incline,
When I am gone,
Take you this little cross of mine
To lean upon,
And setting out what path you will,
Careless of your own strength and skill,
You soon will find me; only say,
"What wish you most to do to-day?"
The child looks out into the night,
With gaze of pain and pale affright,
Then turns an eye of keen desire
On the thin gleam of inward fire,
Then rests a long and silent while,
Upon that brother's glorious smile.
-- You've seen the subtle magnet draw
The iron by its hidden law,
So seems that smile to lure along
The child from an enclosing throng
Of fears and fancies undefined,
And to one passion fix its mind, --
Till every struggling doubt to check
And give to love its due,
It casts its arms about his neck,
And cries, "With you, with you, --
For you have sung me many a song,
Like mine own mother's, all night long,
And you have play'd with me in dreams,
Along the walks, beside the streams,
Of Paradise, -- the blessed bowers,
Where what men call the stars are flowers,
And what to them looks deep and blue
Is but a veil which we saw through,
Into the garden without end,
Where you the angel-children tend:
So that they asked me when I woke,
Where I had been, to whom I spoke,
What I was doing there, to seem
So heavenly-happy in my dream?

Oh! take me, take me, there again,
Out of the cold and wind and rain,
Out of this dark and cruel town,
Whose houses on the orphan frown;
Bear me the thundering clouds above
To the safe kingdom of your love:
Or if you will not, I can go
With you barefooted through the snow; --
I shall not feel the bitter blast,
If you will take me home at last."

Three kisses on its dead-cold cheeks, --
Three on its bloodless brow, --
And a clear answering music speaks,
"Sweet brother! come there now:
It shall be so; there is no dread
Within the aureole of mine head;
This hand in yours, this living hand,
Can all the world of cold withstand,
And, though so small, is strong to lift
Your feet above the thickest drift;
The wind that round you raged and broke
Shall fold about us like a cloak,
And we shall reach that garden soon,
Without the guide of sun or moon."
So down the mansion's slippery stair,
Into the midnight weather,
Pass, as if sorrows never were,
The weak and strong together.

-- This was the night before the morn,
On which the Hope of Man was born,
And long ere dawn can claim the sky,
The tempest rolls subservient by;
While bells on all sides sing and say,
How Christ the child was born to-day;
Free as the sun's in June, the rays
Mix merry with the Yuhl-log's blaze;
Some butterflies of snow may float
Down slowly, glistening in the mote,
But crystal-leaved and fruited trees
Scarce lose a jewel in the breeze;
Frost-diamonds twinkle on the grass,
Transformed from pearly dew,
And silver flowers encrust the glass,
Which gardens never knew.

The inmates of the house, before
Whose iron-fended heedless door,
The children of our nightly tale
Were standing, rise refreshed and hale,
And run, as if a race to win,
To let the Christmas morning in.
They find, upon the threshold stone,
A little Child, just like their own;
Asleep it seems, but when the head
Is raised, it sleeps, as sleep the dead;
The fatal point had touched it, while
The lips had just begun a smile,
The forehead 'mid the matted tresses
A perfect-painless end expresses,
And, unconvulsed, the hands may wear
The posture more of thanks than prayer.
They tend it straight in wondering grief, --
And, when all skill brings no relief,
They bear it onward, in its smile,
Up the Cathedral's central aisle:
There, soon as Priests and People heard
How the thing was, they speak not word,
But take the usual Image, meant
The blessed babe to represent,
Forth from its cradle, and instead
Lay down that silent mortal head.
Now incense-cloud and anthem-sound
Arise the beauteous body round;
Softly the carol chant is sung,
Softly the mirthful peal is rung,
And, when the solemn duties end,
With tapers earnest troops attend
The gentle corpse, nor cease to sing,
Till, by an almond tree,
They bury it, that the flowers of spring
May o'er it soonest be.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net