The orphan's dream of Christmas. It was Christmas Eve, and lonely by a
garret window, high where the city chimneys barely spared a hand's breadth of the
sky, sat a child in age, but weeping, with a face so
small and thin that it seemed too scant a record to have eight years traced
therein Oh, grief looks most distorted when his hideous shadow lies on the clear
and sunny life stream that doth fill a child's blue eyes. But her eye
was dull and sunken, and the whiteened cheek was gaunt, and the blue
veins on the forehead were the penciling of want. And she wept for years
like jewels, till the last year's bitter gall like the acid of the story
in itself, had melted all but the Christmas time returned as an old friend
for whose eyes she would take down all the pictures sketched by faithful memory of
those brilliant Christmas seasons, when the joyous laugh went round, and sweet words
of love and kindness were no unfamiliar sound. When lit by the log's red
luster, she her mother's face could see, and she rocked the cradle sitting
on her own twin brother's knee, of her father's pleasant stories, of the
riddles and the rhymes, all the kisses and the presents that had marked those
Christmas times. Twas as well that there was no one, for it were
a mocking strain to wish her a merry Christmas, for that could not come
again. How there came a time of struggling, when, in spite of
love and faith grinding poverty would only in the end give place to death.
How her mother grew heart broken when her toil worn father died, took her
baby in her bosom, and was buried by his side. How she clung
unto her brother as the last spar from the wreck, But stern death had
come between them. While her arms were round his neck. There were now
no loving voices, And if a few hands offered bread, they were none
to rest in blessing on the little homeless head. Or if any gave her
shelter, it was less of joy than fear. For they welcomed crime more
warmly to the self same room with her. But at length they all grew
weary of their sick and useless guest. She must try a workhouse, welcome
for the helpless and distressed. But she prayed, and the unsleeping in his
ear, that whisper caught, so he sent down Sleep, who gave her
such a respite as she sought, drew the fair head to her bosom,
pressed the wedded eyelid's close, and with softly falling kisses, lulled her gently
to repose. Then she dreamed the angels sweeping with their wings the sky aside
raised her swiftly to the country where the blessed ones abide, to a bower
all flushed with beauty by a shadowy arcade, where a mellowness like moonlight by
the tree of life was made, where the rich free it sparkled starlike,
and pure flowers of fadeless eye poured their fragrance on the waters that in crystal
beds went by, where bright hills of pearl and amber closed, the fair
green valleys round and with rainbow light but lasting, where their glistening summits crowned.
Then that distant burning glory mid a gorgeousness of light, the long vista
of archangels could scarce chasten to her sight. There sat one, and her
heart told her twas the same who for our sin was once born a little
baby in the stable of an inn. There was music, Oh, such
music. They were trying the old strains that a certain group of shepherds heard
on Old Judea's plains. But when that divinest chorus, to a softened trembling,
fell, Love's true ear discerned the voices that on earth she loved so
well. At a tiny grotto's entrance, a fair child her eyes behold,
with his ivory shoes hidden neath his curls of living gold, And he asks
them is she coming? But ere anyone can speak. The white arms of
her twin brother are once more about her neck. Then they all come round
her greeting. But she might have well denied that her beautiful young sister is
the poor pale child that died, and the careful look hath vanished from her
father's tearless face. And she does not know her mother till she feels the
old embrace. Oh, from that ecstatic dreaming, must she ever wake again
to the cold and cheerless contrast to a life of lonely pain. But her
maker's sternest servant to her side on tiptoe steps, told his message in a
whisper, and she stirred not as she slept. Now the Christmas morn was
breaking with a dim, uncertain hue, and the chilling breeze of morning came
the broken window through, and the hair upon her forehead was it lifted by
the blast or the brushing wings of Sarah with their burden as they passed.
All the festive bells were chiming to the myriad hearts below, But that deep
sleep still hung heavy on the sleeper's thoughtful brow. To her quiet face,
the dream light had a lingering glory given, but the child herself was keeping
her Christmas Day in heaven. And of the Orphan's Dream of Christmas by Anonymous