Ah! me, how years will run!
But all the years cannot efface
Your purest name, your sweetest grace,
From the heart that still is true
Of all the world to you;
The other faces shine,
But none so fair as thine;
And wherever they are to-night, I know
They look the very same
As in their pictures hanging here
This night, to memory dear,
And painted by the flames,
With tombstones in the background,
And shadows for their frames.
And thus with my pictures only,
And the fancies they unweave,
Alone, and yet not lonely,
I keep my Christmas eve.
I'm sitting alone in my pictured room --
But, no! they have vanished all --
I'm watching the fire-glow fade into gloom,
I'm watching the ashes fall.
And far away back of the cheerful blaze
The beautiful visions of by-gone days
Are rising before my raptured gaze.
Ah! Christmas fire, so bright and warm,
Hast thou a wizard's magic charm
To bring those far-off scenes so near
And make my past days meet me here?
Tell me -- tell me -- how is it?
The past is past, and here I sit,
And there, lo! there before me rise,
Beyond yon glowing flame,
The summer suns of childhood's skies,
Yes -- yes -- the very same!
I saw them rise long, long ago;
I played beneath their golden glow;
And I remember yet,
I often cried with strange regret
When in the west I saw them set
And there they are again;
The suns, the skies, the very days
Of childhood, just beyond that blaze!
But, ah! such visions almost craze
The old man's puzzled brain!
I thought the past was past!
But, no! it cannot be;
'Tis here to-night with me!
How is it, then? the past of men
Is part of one eternity --
The days of yore we so deplore,
They are not dead -- they are not fled,
They live and live for evermore.
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