Christmas Comes Again

Let me be merry now, 't is time;

     The season is at hand

For Christmas rhyme and Christmas chime,

     Close up, and form the band.

The winter fires still burn as bright,

     The lamp-light is as clear,

And since the dead are out of sight,

     What hinders Christmas cheer?

Why think or speak of that abyss

     In which lies all my Past?

High festival I need not miss,

     While song and jest shall last.

We'll clink and drink on Christmas Eve,

     Our ghosts can feel no wrong;

They revelled ere they took their leave --

     Hearken, my Soldier's song:

"The morning air doth coldly pass,

Comrades, to the saddle spring;

The night more bitter cold will bring

Ere dying -- ere dying.

Sweetheart, come, the parting glass;

Glass and sabre, clash, clash, clash,

Ere dying -- ere dying.

Stirrup-cup and stirrup-kiss --

Do you hope the foe we'll miss,

Sweetheart, for this loving kiss,

Ere dying -- ere dying?"

The feasts and revels of the year

     Do ghosts remember long?

Even in memory come they here?

     Listen, my Sailor's song:

"Oh, my hearties, yo heave ho!

Anchor's up in Jolly Bay --

Hey!

Pipes and swipes, hob and nob --

Hey!

Mermaid Bess and Dolphin Meg,

Paddle over Jolly Bay --

Hey!

Tars, haul in for Christmas Day,

For round the 'varsal deep we go;

Never church, never bell,

For to tell

Of Christmas Day.

You heave ho, my hearties, O!

Haul in, mates, here we lay --

Hey!"

His sword is rusting in its sheath,

     His flag furled on the wall;

We'll twine them with a holly-wreath,

     With green leaves cover all.

So clink and drink when falls the eve;

     But, comrades, hide from me

Their graves -- I would not see them heave

     Beside me, like the sea.

Let not my brothers come again,

     As men dead in their prime;

Then hold my hands, forget my pain,

     And strike the Christmas chime.

 Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

 1895

BIO: Elizabeth Drew Stoddard only published one volume of poems in her lifetime, a collection in 1895 called Poems. Born in 1823, she lived through the Civil War, which may explain the military theme of this poem. She died in 1902.

 

STARS FADE

by Dawn Pisturino

Time passes and then we're gone,

A lump of clay once laughing, laughing no more;

Discarded to the open grave to feed a hungry earth;

A useless, lifeless thing

Long-forgotten in the changing years

But a simple name inscribed on stone;

Unrecognized in the awful pile

Of crumbling clay and mouldy dust.

"And where is the sun to warm my aching bones,

And the moon to flame my lover's ardour?

Where is the wind breathing in my ear,

And the life-giving drops of rain?"

Eyes close, and tender hearts stop beating.

So still, so still the cold black earth (a silent void)

Without the living sounds of hot-blooded life.

Stars fade with life's end;

The coffin lid drops with solemn finality;

And Death remains, cold and intractable,

Yielding not a single ray of light.

Lost to darkness, unseeing, unfeeling wreck

Of human flesh, groping in the dark

For solidness and material comfort!

"I shall not comfort thee;" -- and Death hovers over,

Unwanted guardian in our final tribulation.

The soul cries out in black despair: "Lord, take me!"

March 4, 1987

Won GOLDEN POET AWARD 1987, World of Poetry

Published May 18, 2012 on Danse Macabre du Jour.

Copyright ©2011 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.