James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
December 25Christmas Night of 62
By W. Gordon McCabe (18411920)T
The snow is falling overhead;
I hear the lonely sentry’s tread,
And distant watch-fires light the sky.
The soldiers cluster ’round the blaze,
To talk of other Christmas days,
And softly speak of home and home.
Gleams in the watch-fire’s fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow,
And memory leads me to the dead.
Vibrating ’twixt the Now and Then;
I see the low-brow’d home agen,
The old hall wreathed with mistletoe.
And sweetly from the far-off years
Comes borne the laughter faint and low,
The voices of the Long Ago!
My eyes are wet with tender tears.
I see agen the glad surprise
That lightened up the tranquil eyes
And brimmed them o’er with tears of bliss.
She fondly clasp’d her wayward boy—
Her face all radiant with the joy
She felt to see him home once more.
Gleams in the watch-fire’s fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow
Aslant upon my sadden’d brow.
Asleep within the quiet graves
Where lies the snow in drifting waves,—
And I am sitting here alone.
But knows that lov’d ones far away
On bended knees this night will pray:
“God bring our darling from the fight.”
For me no yearning prayers arise,
The lips are mute and closed the eyes—
My home is in the bivouac.