Poetry.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 39, 23 December 1893, Page 8

Poetry.

CHRISTMAS DAY. Blest day, which aye reminds us, year by year, What ’tis to be a man : to curb and spurn The tyrant in us ; that ignoble self Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute. And owns no good save ease, no ill save pain. No purpose, save its share in that wild war In which, through countless ages, living things Compete in internecine greed. And man, the mightiest of all beasts of prey. Eats what he lists; the strong eat up the weak, The many eat the few ; great nations, small 5 And he who Cometh in the name of all— He, greediest, triumphs by the greed of all ; And, armed by his own victims, eats up all I While ever out of the eternal heavens Looks patient down the great magnanimous God, Who, Maker of all worlds, did sacrifice All to Himself ? Nay, but Himself to one ; Who taught mankind on that first Christmas Day What ’twas to be a man ; to give, not take j To serve, not rule; to nourish, not devour ; To help, not crush ; if need, to die, not live* Oh, blessed day which gives the eternal lie To self and sense, and all the brute within t Oh, come to us, amid this war of life; To hall and hovel, come ; to all who toil In senate, shop, or study ; and to those Who, sundered by the wastes of half a world. 111-warned, and sorely tempted, ever face Nature’s brute powers, and men unmanned to brutes, Como to them, blest and blessing, Christmas Day. Tell them once more the talc of Bethlehem j The kneeling shepherds and the Babe Bivine : And keep them men indeed, fair Christmas Day. Exngsiet.