Classic Poem

The Christmas bagpipes I heard mid sleep,
I heard the sound of old lullabies.
The stars are out in the azure deep,
the lantern's glow in the cabins lies.

From the dark mountains they have come here,
the Christmas bagpipes, without a sound,
and have awaked, with their piping clear,
all the good people in slumber drowned.

Each one has risen from his poor bed;
under the rafter he makes a light;
those lamps are fragrant of low words said,
of cautious footsteps, of yawns at night.

The pious lamps are flashing bright beams,
there in the cottage, here on the snow:
in the dim dawning the very earth seems
a worshiping manger, mighty and low.

All of the stars in the blue black sky
seem to be waiting for something there;
when lo! the bagpipes are lifting high
their churchly voices into the air.

Of cloisters and of the church they sing;
they sing of Mother, with memories fraught
of home and cradle, the sounds that ring
with olden, precious weeping for naught.

O Christmas bagpipes of years gone by,
before we enter the life of day,
while yet the stars shine forth from the sky,
aware of our brief, mysterious way;

while yet the toiling is not too near,
while yet the fire we need not lay,
before the work-a-day bells ring clear,
grant us to weep a little, we pray!

Not now for nothing, for something, yes!
for untold things! But the heart still craves
that boundless weeping which later will bless,
that boundless grieving which later saves.

Upon its pain that is new and real
it craves the sobbing that pain allays:
upon its torture, its joy, would feel
those healing tears of the olden days.