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Rowena Foley Noe
A Sonnet of the Season
The Carol in my heart I send to you:
It comes from out the depths of brooding time
To cheer and bless in every place and clime;
To purge the false, to chasten and subdue;
To lift the drooping life, inspire the true
To nobler deeds and thoughts of love sublimte.
This anthem, which I sing in sonnet rhymie,
Judean shepherds heard and angels knew.
And now we fear top longer war's alarms,
For red-eyed Mamns has fled at last our home;
Christ took the little children In his arms
And blessed them saying, "Sutter them to come
To me that al' the sons of inen may find
My kingdom here within the childlike mind."
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Christmas Tide
Evergreen and tinsel toys,
Drums and dolls and bursting joys-
Blessed little girls and boys!
Holly, bells, and mistletoe,
Tinkling sledges, here we go-
Youth and niaideii, o'er the snow.
Chilling winds and leaden days,
Vesper soligs and hymns of praise,
Silver hair and dying blaze.
Chiristmnas morn. and Yuletide eve,
De ar Lord, help us to believe
Nau-Jit but blessings we receive.
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Holiday Thougbts
The Night wa.j like sonme monster omten ill,
Whose shrieking chilled the marrow of my bones;
But Day dawineed vlear (though white as polar zones),
Th-e Bluebird shout ing, "Spring," from every hill:
The world lay parching in the noonday grill,
And blades of corn were twvisting into cones;
But night brought raiii, and then, like golden thrones,
The fruited shocks defied Decnember's chill.
Dear Lord, I would that we might live by fa-ith,
However co"d and dark the day may seem,
And trust that every cloud is but a wraith,
And every shadow a dissolving dreamsi.
O M.aster, grant our eyes miay see the lights
That glealin forever on the beaconi heights.
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Worship
The crown of Caesar glittering on his brow,
The sword of Nero clanking at his side,
His giant hand made crimson in the tide
Of Life, insatiate ,Mammon feigns to bow
Before the altar of the Prince of Peace.
How long, 0 God in heaven, wilt thou bide
This mockery of the lowly Christ, who died
That sin and greed and enmity -might ceaso
Not Holy Wars, nor death of heretics,
Nor rich cathedrals towering to the sky,
Nor bended knee before the crucifix,
Nor any faith in form can sanctify;
But Brotherhood devoid of self ish strife,
And Love, the incense of a noble life.
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Fellow -Travelers
Old comrade, must we separate to-day
Sometimes my feet have faltered, sore and tired,
And sometimes in the sloughs and quicksaiids
mired,
But it has always helped to hear you say,
"The road is fine a little further on."
Your always genial smile and hearty cheer
Have made the journey pleasant, good Old Year,
And I, in truth, regret to see you gone.
Young New Year whom you leave me as a guide,
In doubt would have me pledge a lot of thin-gs
Before we start, and make some offerings
To gods whose love, I fear, reill not abide,
And yet I like my new companion's face.
Old Year, lend him your wisdom and your grace.
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A Rhyimieless Sonnet
Sardonic Death, clothed in a scarlet shroud,
Salutes his minions oIt the crumbling thrones
Of Tyranny, and with malicious leer
He points a fleshless finger towards the fields
Of B1elgiunm: "No harvest since the days
Of Bonaparte and Waterloo hath filled
My flagons with a wvine of such taste-
Your crowns ye hold by rights divine indeed!"
Appareled in a robe of shining hlite
Another lifts his hands as if to bless:
"The Truth enthron-ed in Democracy
Has twined the holly round Columbia's brow-
A crown of 'Peace on earth, good will to men'-
I am the Resurrection and the Life."
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Christmas Nineteen-Seventeen
All of the old dreams have gone,-
The thrice told tale around the hearth,
The holly and the mistletoe and mirth,
And shouts of innocence and joy before the dawn.
All of the old dreams are gone,
And in their stead a million shattered souls, inert,
And Hunger's piercing cry.
But memory and love can never die-
Dear God, help us to bear the hurt.
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Chrstinas
Not in bells and mistletoe,
Evergreen and tinsel showv,
Not in incandescent glow
Is Christmas.
Neither in the poet's rhyme
Is there Christmas every time;
Prose and verse are sometimes art;
Only in the loving heart
Is Christmas.
Not in merriment and fun,
Flaming candle, roaring gun,
Not in snow or cloud or sun
Is Christmas.
Neither always in the gift-
Maybe this is sometimes thrift,
Practiced with a little art;
Only in the throbbing heart
Is Christmas.
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My Carol
The rhyme I send is all my gift to you,
And though its music's jangled out of tune
September skies that wvould be ouly June-
It's but the hand-the ninistrel's harp is true;
For if you heard the sonig my heart would pen,
'Twould be the choral that the angels saug
That night the hills of old Judea rang
With anthems, "Peace on earth good will to nien."
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Dreams
Vanishing with the cycles-
All but the dreams:
The lads that gathered round the hearth,
The sweethearts of our crimson youth,
The tales we used to tell,
Even the songs we knew and loved;
But children's shouts around the Christmas Tree
Will be forever musical and sweet,
Because of dreams.
Dear God, we thank Thee for the dreams.
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At the Christmas Tree
I saw the Master at the Christmas Tree.
Radiant He sat apart and watched the scene-
The children's jubilee,
The candles and the evergreen
The golden and the tinsel sheen.
Tenderly He listened to the dinl,
And looked upon the faces still uniscared by sin.
I saw Him note poor crippled Nancy Dove
And little orphan Joe,
Both laden with the gifts of love;
And then I understood the words hie uttered long agr:
"Suffer the little children to come to me."
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The Simple Art
I met a jolly chap to-day
As I came downt the Great Highway.
He had a pack upon his back
That almost blocked the road.
Yet on he came beneath his load
Singing a roundelay.
"Aha!" I mused, "sonie peddler, he,
I wonder what his wares can be"
As though he read my thoughts lie stopped
Left off his song, looked up and dropped
His pack, and thus saluted me:
"Now let us see," he said, said he,
"If you rememiber me."
His beard was like the polar snmav;,
His cheeks were ruddy as the glow
Of sunset in a winter sky.
At first I knew not what to say.
I looked him somewhile in the face,
I looked him in the eye,
Until there came the vaguest trace,
And then the perfect meniory
Of fifty years ago to-day:-
An old man and a tiny boy,
A tin horn a md unbounded joy!
But still it was beyond my ken
That he seemed younger now than theii
By half a century.
"Your sect-et, Sanmta Claus," criel I;
"How do you Father Time defy"
He laughed outright, "The Siniple Art
Of keeping Chmristmna.s in the heart."
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Christmas In The Heart
As I came downi the Great Iliglh-tay
I met the saine old chap tdlay
Who carries in his giant pack
Enough to break a Titan's back.
Yet on he strode beneath his load,
Singing his roun delay.
Now I declare I think his hair
Was whiter thaii a polar bear,
And yet his voice and what he sung
Were proGf that Santa Claus wi-. yi uug.
I hfailed hin., "I deniaud the truth,-
Your secret of eternal youth."
"I told 3ou once- The Simiple Art
Of keeping Christmas in the heart.' "
"But, Santa Claus, wil( y N oi explain
Just how I ctni this Ait attaiii"
"By trusting mnuch to faith anld love,
Believing, though you can not prove;
By giving more than you receive,
And taking less than you achieve;
Forgivinig base ingratitude,
The insult anid the angry mood.-
Forgetting all the hurt and ro allg."
And theit lie raised his blithesome song,
And started on beneath his load
Of gifts that almost blocked the road.
"Dear Santa Claus," I cried, "but how,
How can one I)ractice such an Art "
His niellow voice was tremnbling 1o(w,
"By hekrhing Christmas in the Heart!"