A Christmas Fancy

            Early on Christmas Day,
            Love, as awake I lay,
And heard the Christmas bells ring sweet and clearly,
            My heart stole through the gloom
            Into your silent room,
And whispered to your heart, 'I love you dearly.'

            There, in the dark profound,
            Your heart was sleeping sound,
And dreaming some fair dream of summer weather.
            At my heart's word it woke,
            And, ere the morning broke,
They sang a Christmas carol both together.

            Glory to God on high!
            Stars of the morning sky,
Sing as ye sang upon the first creation,
            When all the Sons of God
            Shouted for joy abroad,
And earth was laid upon a sure foundation.

            Glory to God again!
            Peace and goodwill to men,
And kindly feeling all the wide world over,
            Where friends with joy and mirth
            Meet round the Christmas hearth,
Or dreams of home the solitary rover.

            Glory to God!    True hearts,
            Lo, now the dark departs,
And morning on the snow-clad hills grows grey.
            Oh, may love's dawning light
            Kindled from loveless night,
Shine more and more unto the perfect day!

Robert Fuller Murray

Robert Fuller Murray was a Scottish poet known for his lyrical and expressive poetry. Born on December 26, 1863, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, he moved to Scotland at a young age. Despite a short life, ending on April 15, 1894, Murray left a significant mark with his works, which often reflected themes of nature and human emotion. His poetry is characterized by its elegance and depth of feeling. Murray's influence remained through posthumous publications and collections of his poetry.

Robert Fuller Murray

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Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

English

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Christmas Fancies

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago.
        And etched on vacant places,
        Are half forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know -
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow.

Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near,
We see, with strange emotion that is not free from fear,
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Youth's lovely lost Atlantis, so mourned for and so dear,
Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near.

When gloomy gray Decembers are roused to Christmas mirth,
The dullest life remembers there once was joy on earth,
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Christmas Fancies

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,
    And etched on vacant places
    Are half-forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know -
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow.

Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near,
We see, with strange emotion, that is not free from fear,
    That continent Elysian
    Long vanished from our vision,
Youth's lovely lost Atlantis, so mourned for and so dear,
Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near.

When gloomy, gray Decembers are roused to Christmas mirth,
The dullest life remembers there once was joy on earth,
    And draws from youth's recesses
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A Christmas Carol.

            The brazen bells of laughing lands
                In swelling echoes wildly ring,
            And over seas and hoary strands
                This Christmas carol sing.


    "Awaken, O, heart of the race,
        To bountiful riches from Eden above,
    Till roses of beauty and lilies of grace
        Shall sweeten the languishing bosom with love;
    Till virulent sorrow and venomous hate
        Their poisonous curses of misery cease,
    And rapturous fortune, felicitous fate,
        Have rule in the musical meadows of peace.

    "The voices of morning to men,
        In passionate whispers of bounteous glee,
    Are pulsing the gladness of Christmas again
        O'er plains of the prairie and sounds of the sea;
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Love's Worship Restored

O Love, thine empire is not dead,
Nor will we let thy worship go,
Although thine early flush be fled,
Thine ardent eyes more faintly glow,
And thy light wings be fallen slow
Since when as novices we came
Into the temple of thy name.

Not now with garlands in our hair,
And singing lips, we come to thee.
There is a coldness in the air,
A dulness on the encircling sea,
Which doth not well with songs agree.
And we forget the words we sang
When first to thee our voices rang.

When we recall that magic prime,
We needs must weep its early death.
How pleasant from thy towers the chime
Of bells, and sweet the incense breath
That rose while we, who kept thy faith,
Chanting our creed, and chanting bore
Our offerings to thine altar store!

Robert Fuller Murray

Christmas Hymn.

Break over the waiting hill-tops,
    White dawn of the Christmas morn!
For the angels have sung through the midnight,
    That the wonderful Babe is born.

And still in the slumbering valleys,
    The night's black tents are up,
And the young moon stands on the mountains,
    Clear and fair as a silver cup.

Under the cottage rafters,
    Silent and soft and deep,
On the swart low brow of the toiler,
    Settles the dew of sleep.

And some that watch and waken,
    Are dreaming of eyes whose ray
Was long ago quenched and hidden
    Under the shroud away.

Oh, sing thy jubilant anthem
    Over the frozen mould,
And tell that wonderful story
    Again, that never grows old!

For under the year's broad shadow,
  ...

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Das Krist Kindel

I had fed the fire and stirred it, till the sparkles in delight
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I could hear the hungry Winter prowling round the outer door,
And the tread of muffled footsteps on the white piazza floor;
But the sounds came to me only as the murmur of a stream
That mingled with the current of a lazy-flowing dream.

Like a fragrant incense rising, curled the smoke of my cigar,
With the lamplight gleaming through it like a mist-enfolded star; -
And as I gazed, the vapor like a curtain rolled away,
With a sound of bells that tinkled, and the clatter of a sleigh.

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