Thoughts Of Christmas-Day In India

IT is Christmas, and the sunshine Lies golden on the fields,

And flowers of white and

Yonder fragrant creeper yields.

Like the plumes of some bold warrior,

The cocoa-tree on high,

Lifts aloft its feathery branches,

Amid the deep blue sky.

From yonder shadowy peepul,

The pale fair lilac dove,

Like music from a temple,

Sings a song of grief and love.

The earth is bright with blossoms,

And a thousand jewelled wings,

Mid the green boughs of the tamarindA sudden sunshine flings.

For the East, is earth's first-born,

And hath a glorious dower,

As Nature there had

Her beauty and her power.

And yet I pine for England,

For my own—my distant home:

My heart is in that island,

Where'er my steps may roam.

It is merry there at Christmas—We have no Christmas here;'Tis a weary thing, a

That lasts throughout the yearI remember how the

Hung round our ancient hall,

Bound with wreaths of shining holly,

Brave winter's coronal.

And above each rusty

Waved a new and cheering plume,

A branch of crimson berries,

And the latest rose in bloom.

And the white and pearly

Hung half concealed o'er head,

I remember one sweet maiden,

Whose cheek it dyed with red.

The morning waked with carols,

A young and joyous

Of small and rosy songsters,

Came tripping hand in hand.

And sang beneath our

Just as the round red

Began to melt the hoar-frost,

And the clear cold day begun.

And at night the aged

Played his old tunes o'er and o'er;

From sixteen up to sixty,

All were dancing on that floor.

Those were the days of childhood,

The buoyant and the bright;

When hope was life's sweet sovereign,

And the heart and step were light.

I shall come again—a

To all that once I knew,

For the hurried steps of

From life's flowers have dash'd the dew.

I yet may ask their welcome,

And return from whence I came;

But a change is wrought within me,

They will not seem the

For my spirits are grown weary,

And my days of youth are o'er,

And the mirth of that glad

Is what I can feel no more.