Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LINES GIVEN TO M. AT CHRISTMAS, by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LINES GIVEN TO M. AT CHRISTMAS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What shall I give thee, dear, to-day
Last Line: The anguish of the lifted cross.
Subject(s): Christmas; Gifts & Giving; Grief; Love; Nativity, The; Sorrow; Sadness


WITH A GIFT OF THE VIRGIN OF LUINI

WHAT shall I give thee, dear, to-day,
Upon this sacred Christmas morn,
That tells us of the gift of love
God gave when Christ was born,

And hope became a seraph winged
With timeless dreams, and love elate
Saw with young eyes another world
Where love's lost angels wait?

Ah, small were any richest gift
Without such love as thro' the years
Was sweeter for the hour of joy
And nobler for the day of tears.

Take, then, with love this gentle face
That had a more than human share
Of joy and grief, and haply, too,
Through the long years of sorrow bore

In that gray village of the hills,
The sense of some diviner loss
Than death deals out, and evermore
The anguish of the lifted cross.





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