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Speaker 1: The orphan's dream of Christmas. It was Christmas Eve, and

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lonely by a garret window, high where the city chimneys

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barely spared a hand's breadth of the sky, sat a

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child in age, but weeping, with a face so small

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and thin that it seemed too scant a record to

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have eight years traced therein Oh, grief looks most distorted

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when his hideous shadow lies on the clear and sunny

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life stream that doth fill a child's blue eyes. But

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her eye was dull and sunken, and the whiteened cheek

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was gaunt, and the blue veins on the forehead were

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the penciling of want. And she wept for years like jewels,

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till the last year's bitter gall like the acid of

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the story in itself, had melted all but the Christmas

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time returned as an old friend for whose eyes she

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would take down all the pictures sketched by faithful memory

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of those brilliant Christmas seasons, when the joyous laugh went round,

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and sweet words of love and kindness were no unfamiliar sound.

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When lit by the log's red luster, she her mother's

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face could see, and she rocked the cradle sitting on

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her own twin brother's knee, of her father's pleasant stories,

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of the riddles and the rhymes, all the kisses and

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the presents that had marked those Christmas times. Twas as

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well that there was no one, for it were a

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mocking strain to wish her a merry Christmas, for that

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could not come again. How there came a time of struggling, when,

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in spite of love and faith grinding poverty would only

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in the end give place to death. How her mother

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grew heart broken when her toil worn father died, took

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her baby in her bosom, and was buried by his side.

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How she clung unto her brother as the last spar

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from the wreck, But stern death had come between them.

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While her arms were round his neck. There were now

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no loving voices, And if a few hands offered bread,

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they were none to rest in blessing on the little

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homeless head. Or if any gave her shelter, it was

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less of joy than fear. For they welcomed crime more

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warmly to the self same room with her. But at

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length they all grew weary of their sick and useless guest.

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She must try a workhouse, welcome for the helpless and distressed.

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But she prayed, and the unsleeping in his ear, that

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whisper caught, so he sent down Sleep, who gave her

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such a respite as she sought, drew the fair head

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to her bosom, pressed the wedded eyelid's close, and with

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softly falling kisses, lulled her gently to repose. Then she

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dreamed the angels sweeping with their wings the sky aside

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raised her swiftly to the country where the blessed ones abide,

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to a bower all flushed with beauty by a shadowy arcade,

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where a mellowness like moonlight by the tree of life

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was made, where the rich free it sparkled starlike, and

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pure flowers of fadeless eye poured their fragrance on the

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waters that in crystal beds went by, where bright hills

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of pearl and amber closed, the fair green valleys round

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and with rainbow light but lasting, where their glistening summits crowned.

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Then that distant burning glory mid a gorgeousness of light,

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the long vista of archangels could scarce chasten to her sight.

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There sat one, and her heart told her twas the

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same who for our sin was once born a little

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baby in the stable of an inn. There was music, Oh,

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such music. They were trying the old strains that a

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certain group of shepherds heard on Old Judea's plains. But

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when that divinest chorus, to a softened trembling, fell, Love's

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true ear discerned the voices that on earth she loved

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so well. At a tiny grotto's entrance, a fair child

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her eyes behold, with his ivory shoes hidden neath his

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curls of living gold, And he asks them is she coming?

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But ere anyone can speak. The white arms of her

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twin brother are once more about her neck. Then they

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all come round her greeting. But she might have well

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denied that her beautiful young sister is the poor pale

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child that died, and the careful look hath vanished from

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her father's tearless face. And she does not know her

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mother till she feels the old embrace. Oh, from that

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ecstatic dreaming, must she ever wake again to the cold

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and cheerless contrast to a life of lonely pain. But

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her maker's sternest servant to her side on tiptoe steps,

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told his message in a whisper, and she stirred not

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as she slept. Now the Christmas morn was breaking with

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a dim, uncertain hue, and the chilling breeze of morning

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came the broken window through, and the hair upon her

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forehead was it lifted by the blast or the brushing

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wings of Sarah with their burden as they passed. All

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the festive bells were chiming to the myriad hearts below,

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But that deep sleep still hung heavy on the sleeper's

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thoughtful brow. To her quiet face, the dream light had

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a lingering glory given, but the child herself was keeping

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her Christmas Day in heaven. And of the Orphan's Dream

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of Christmas by Anonymous