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. |