Charles Henry Crandall (1858–1923)

AS little children in a darkened hall

At Christmas-tide await the opening door,

Eager to tread the fairy-haunted floor

Around the tree with goodly gifts for all,

Oft in the darkness to each other call—

Trying to guess their happiness before—

Or knowing elders eagerly implore

To tell what fortune unto them may fall:

So wait we in Time’s dim and narrow room,

And, with strange fancies or another’s thought,

Try to divine before the curtain rise

The wondrous scene; forgetting that the gloom

Must shortly rise from what the ages sought—

The Father’s long-planned gift of Paradise.