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Thread: Christmas

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    Western Pa.
    Posts
    1,550

    Default Christmas

    Christmas

    By Henry Timrod
    How grace this hallowed day?
    Shall happy bells, from yonder ancient spire,
    Send their glad greetings to each Christmas fire
    Round which the children play?
    Alas! for many a moon,
    That tongueless tower hath cleaved the Sabbath air,
    Mute as an obelisk of ice, aglare
    Beneath an Arctic noon.
    Shame to the foes that drown
    Our psalms of worship with their impious drum,
    The sweetest chimes in all the land lie dumb
    In some far rustic town.
    There, let us think, they keep,
    Of the dead Yules which here beside the sea
    They’ve ushered in with old-world, English glee,
    Some echoes in their sleep.
    How shall we grace the day?
    With feast, and song, and dance, and antique sports,
    And shout of happy children in the courts,
    And tales of ghost and fay?
    Is there indeed a door,
    Where the old pastimes, with their lawful noise,
    And all the merry round of Christmas joys,
    Could enter as of yore?
    Would not some pallid face
    Look in upon the banquet, calling up
    Dread shapes of battles in the wassail cup,
    And trouble all the place?
    How could we bear the mirth,
    While some loved reveler of a year ago
    Keeps his mute Christmas now beneath the snow,
    In cold Virginian earth?
    How shall we grace the day?
    Ah! let the thought that on this holy morn
    The Prince of Peace — the Prince of Peace was born,
    Employ us, while we pray!
    Pray for the peace which long
    Hath left this tortured land, and haply now
    Holds its white court on some far mountain’s brow,
    There hardly safe from wrong!
    Let every sacred fane
    Call its sad votaries to the shrine of God,
    And, with the cloister and the tented sod,
    Join in one solemn strain!
    With pomp of Roman form,
    With the grave ritual brought from England’s shore,
    And with the simple faith which asks no more
    Than that the heart be warm!
    He, who, till time shall cease,
    Will watch that earth, where once, not all in vain,
    He died to give us peace, may not disdain
    A prayer whose theme is — peace.
    Perhaps ere yet the Spring
    Hath died into the Summer, over all
    The land, the peace of His vast love shall fall,
    Like some protecting wing.
    Oh, ponder what it means!
    Oh, turn the rapturous thought in every way!
    Oh, give the vision and the fancy play,
    And shape the coming scenes!
    Peace in the quiet dales,
    Made rankly fertile by the blood of men,
    Peace in the woodland, and the lonely glen,
    Peace in the peopled vales!
    Peace in the crowded town,
    Peace in a thousand fields of waving grain,
    Peace in the highway and the flowery lane,
    Peace on the wind-swept down!
    Peace on the farthest seas,
    Peace in our sheltered bays and ample streams,
    Peace wheresoe’er our starry garland gleams,
    And peace in every breeze!
    Peace on the whirring marts,
    Peace where the scholar thinks, the hunter roams,
    Peace, God of Peace! peace, peace, in all our homes,
    And peace in all our hearts!
    ''... I believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people...are a safeguard to the continuance of a free government...whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast Republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.''- Gen. Robert E. Lee

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Slave Region 10
    Posts
    113,807

    Default

    Faith of our fathers, living still
    In spite of dungeon, fire and sword,
    O how our hearts beat high with joy
    Whene’er we hear that glorious word!
    Faith of our fathers! holy faith!
    We will be true to thee till death!
    2 Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,
    Were still in heart and conscience free;
    And blest would be their children’s fate,
    If they, like them should die for thee:
    Faith of our fathers! holy faith!
    We will be true to thee till death!
    3 Faith of our fathers, we will strive
    To win all nations unto thee;
    And through the truth that comes from God
    Mankind shall then indeed be free.
    Faith of our fathers! holy faith!
    We will be true to thee till death!
    4 Faith of our fathers, we will love
    Both friend and foe in all our strife,
    And preach thee, too, as love knows how
    By kindly words and virtuous life.
    Faith of our fathers! holy faith!
    We will be true to thee till death!
    They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
    “As a general rule, the earlier you recognize someone is trying to kill you, the better off you’ll be.”

    "You think a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a sheet of glass."



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