WHAT may a poet find to praise,
  Or what the soul and heart to cheer,
What time the dark December days
  Are whitening towards the closing year,

When all the silent woods are bare,
  And all the streams lie still and dead,
And from the bleak and biting air
  Each woodland hermit hides his head;

When for the song of birds and brooks,
  For summer morn and sunset glow,
A wilderness of men and books
  Piles up the tide of human woe,

And sages tell us that, behind
  The song of birds, the opening flower,
Lies some — we may not call it blind —
  But only blank and formless power,

And still look down the unchanging stars
  On bitter feud and deadly fray;
On clash of arms and dungeon bars,
  And hate that seems to live always?

*            *            *            *            *

Nay, on the branches brown and bare
  The buds grow, waiting for the spring,
With sunshine sweet and balmy air
  To wake them into blossoming!

And o’er the bleak expanse of snow
  What silvery music softly swells!
Its deep-voiced gladness well we know —
  Once more ring out the Christmas bells.

Then tell the tale so sweet and old:
  Too oft it cannot greet our ears;
Not mindless Power, but Love untold
  Controls the atoms and the spheres; —

Love that can stoop to low estate,
  Or rise aloft in angel song;
Divine, wise Love, not hard, blind Fate,
  And strong as Love alone is strong, —

Love that, like life, enwraps us round,
  Smiles on us here from human eyes;
Yet lifts our souls from earthly bound
  To breathe the air of paradise.

And in that mystic point afar,
  Towards which a myriad suns are led,
We see in parable the Star
  That shone about the manger-bed.

The wisdom of the East and West
  Must humbly seek that lowly shrine,
And find the object of their quest
  In worship of the Love Divine!