BETA

The Waits.

In a dull night of December, when the last decaying
ember1
Of the fire was faintly flickering, with a random
sort of blaze,2
Throwing weirdly round the room, forms fantastic
in the gloom,3
Sounds of music, all untimely at this recreant hour,
came.4
An hour or so, meseeming, in my chair had I been
dreaming,5
In the late night all sedately of the Christmases
long gone ;6
Thinking of the years gone by—how alone in them
but I7
Remained of all the throng of friends departed
one by one.8
When this sound of distant singing—faint, sweet
echoes ever bringing,9
Strangely, softly at this hour, all across the silent
snow—10
Woke me almost with a fear, till there broke upon
mine ear11
The cadence of a chanting I had heard long, long
ago.12
Till aroused from my half-sleeping, I knew that they
were keeping13
The vigil quaint and olden that our Fathers kept
before,14
In the days when frost and snow, through their cold-
ness were aglow15
With the warmth of fellow-kindness, in the lusty
days of yore.16
Then memories, rare and olden, of youth’s gala
moments golden,17
Thronged upon me with the fervour of a long for-
gotten time ;18
And the midnight singers’ strain brought all back
to me again,19
Loved voices lost for ever with a many-changing
chime.20
Old faces, with the greeting of many an ancient
meeting,21
Looked on me, bright and cheery, with the old
familiar gaze ;22
And through the ghostly gloom, fell about my
curtain’d room23
Old footsteps known and welcomed in the long
departed days.24
But most of all up-beaming, with the tender love-light
streaming,25
Like a burst of April sunshine from her angel
eyes of truth,26
Came the sweet, immortal smile of a maid for whom
awhile27
My life was life ecstatic, in the morning-tide of
youth.28
Till this music heard so quaintly, on the midnight
falling faintly,29
Fell away into the distance like a passing spirit
song ;30
And my vision of the past faded slowly out at last,31
And I knew that I slone remained of all the
throng.32