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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"><title>Christmas Day</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /></head><body><div id="fx"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx2"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="30" scrolling="no" src="/titlesmenu.htm" align="left" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div><div id="blnk"></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable"><tr><td><div id="fx5"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx6"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="245" scrolling="no" src="/bmc/genesis/1-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable3"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center" id="announce"><tr><td><div id="l1"><div id="breadcrumbs"><a href="//biblehub.com">Bible</a> > <a href="/library/">Library</a></div><div id="anc"><iframe src="/anc.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><div id="anc2"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><iframe src="/anc2.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></td></tr></table><div id="movebox2"><table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><div id="topheading">Christmas Day</div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center" class="maintable2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><div id="leftbox"><div class="padleft"><div class="vheading"><span class="booktext"><a href="index.html">Andromeda and Other Poems</a></span><span class="authortext"><a href="/authors/kingsley.htm"> — Charles Kingsley</a></div>How will it dawn, the coming Christmas Day?<br>A northern Christmas, such as painters love,<br>And kinsfolk, shaking hands but once a year,<br>And dames who tell old legends by the fire?<br>Red sun, blue sky, white snow, and pearled ice,<br>Keen ringing air, which sets the blood on fire,<br>And makes the old man merry with the young,<br>Through the short sunshine, through the longer night? Or southern Christmas, dark and dank with mist,<br>And heavy with the scent of steaming leaves,<br>And rosebuds mouldering on the dripping porch;<br>One twilight, without rise or set of sun,<br>Till beetles drone along the hollow lane,<br>And round the leafless hawthorns, flitting bats<br>Hawk the pale moths of winter? Welcome then<br>At best, the flying gleam, the flying shower,<br>The rain-pools glittering on the long white roads,<br>And shadows sweeping on from down to down<br>Before the salt Atlantic gale: yet come<br>In whatsoever garb, or gay, or sad,<br>Come fair, come foul, 'twill still be Christmas Day. How will it dawn, the coming Christmas Day?<br>To sailors lounging on the lonely deck<br>Beneath the rushing trade-wind? Or to him,<br>Who by some noisome harbour of the East,<br>Watches swart arms roll down the precious bales,<br>Spoils of the tropic forests; year by year<br>Amid the din of heathen voices, groaning<br>Himself half heathen? How to those -- brave hearts!<br>Who toil with laden loins and sinking stride<br>Beside the bitter wells of treeless sands<br>Toward the peaks which flood the ancient Nile,<br>To free a tyrant's captives? How to those -- <br>New patriarchs of the new-found underworld -- <br>Who stand, like Jacob, on the virgin lawns,<br>And count their flocks' increase? To them that day Shall dawn in glory, and solstitial blaze<br>Of full midsummer sun: to them that morn,<br>Gay flowers beneath their feet, gay birds aloft,<br>Shall tell of nought but summer: but to them,<br>Ere yet, unwarned by carol or by chime,<br>They spring into the saddle, thrills may come<br>From that great heart of Christendom which beats<br>Round all the worlds; and gracious thoughts of youth; Of steadfast folk, who worship God at home;<br>Of wise words, learnt beside their mothers' knee;<br>Of innocent faces upturned once again<br>In awe and joy to listen to the tale<br>Of God made man, and in a manger laid -- <br>May soften, purify, and raise the soul<br>From selfish cares, and growing lust of gain,<br>And phantoms of this dream which some call life,<br>Toward the eternal facts; for here or there,<br>Summer or winter, 'twill be Christmas Day.<p>Blest day, which aye reminds us, year by year,<br>What 'tis to be a man: to curb and spurn<br>The tyrant in us; that ignobler self<br>Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute, And owns no good save ease, no ill save pain,<br>No purpose, save its share in that wild war<br>In which, through countless ages, living things<br>Compete in internecine greed. -- Ah God!<br>Are we as creeping things, which have no Lord?<br>That we are brutes, great God, we know too well;<br>Apes daintier-featured; silly birds who flaunt<br>Their plumes unheeding of the fowler's step;<br>Spiders, who catch with paper, not with webs;<br>Tigers, who slay with cannon and sharp steel,<br>Instead of teeth and claws; -- all these we are.<br>Are we no more than these, save in degree?<br>No more than these; and born but to compete -- <br>To envy and devour, like beast or herb;<br>Mere fools of nature; puppets of strong lusts,<br>Taking the sword, to perish with the sword<br>Upon the universal battle-field,<br>Even as the things upon the moor outside?<br>The heath eats up green grass and delicate flowers, The pine eats up the heath, the grub the pine,<br>The finch the grub, the hawk the silly finch;<br>And man, the mightiest of all beasts of prey,<br>Eats what he lists; the strong eat up the weak,<br>The many eat the few; great nations, small;<br>And he who cometh in the name of all -- <br>He, greediest, triumphs by the greed of all;<br>And, armed by his own victims, eats up all:<br>While ever out of the eternal heavens<br>Looks patient down the great magnanimous God,<br>Who, Maker of all worlds, did sacrifice<br>All to Himself? Nay, but Himself to one;<br>Who taught mankind on that first Christmas Day,<br>What 'twas to be a man; to give, not take;<br>To serve, not rule; to nourish, not devour;<br>To help, not crush; if need, to die, not live.<br>O blessed day, which givest the eternal lie<br>To self, and sense, and all the brute within;<br>Oh, come to us, amid this war of life;<br>To hall and hovel, come; to all who toil<br>In senate, shop, or study; and to those<br>Who, sundered by the wastes of half a world,<br>Ill-warned, and sorely tempted, ever face<br>Nature's brute powers, and men unmanned to brutes -- Come to them, blest and blessing, Christmas Day.<br>Tell them once more the tale of Bethlehem;<br>The kneeling shepherds, and the Babe Divine:<br>And keep them men indeed, fair Christmas Day.<p>Eversley, 1868.<p><div align="center"><b></b></div></div></div></td></tr></table></div><div id="left"><a href="drifting_away_a_fragment.htm" onmouseover='lft.src="/leftgif.png"' onmouseout='lft.src="/left.png"' title="drifting away a fragment"><img src="/left.png" name="lft" border="0" alt="drifting away a fragment" /></a></div><div id="right"><a href="september_21_1870_325.htm" onmouseover='rght.src="/rightgif.png"' onmouseout='rght.src="/right.png"' title="september 21 1870 325"><img src="/right.png" name="rght" border="0" alt="september 21 1870 325" /></a></div><div id="botleft"><a href="#" onmouseover='botleft.src="/botleftgif.png"' onmouseout='botleft.src="/botleft.png"' title="Top of Page"><img src="/botleft.png" name="botleft" border="0" alt="Top of Page" /></a></div><div id="botright"><a href="#" onmouseover='botright.src="/botrightgif.png"' onmouseout='botright.src="/botright.png"' title="Top of Page"><img src="/botright.png" name="botright" border="0" alt="Top of Page" /></a></div><div align="center"><br /><br /><script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>  <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:inline-block;width:200px;height:200px" data-ad-client="ca-pub-3753401421161123" data-ad-slot="7081625135"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /><br /></div><div id="bot"><iframe width="100%" height="1500" scrolling="no" src="/botmenubhchap.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></td></tr></table></div></body></html>