Classic Poem

How many hearts are happy at this hour
In England! Brightly o'er the cheerful hall
Flares the heaped hearth, and friends and kindred meet,
And the glad mother round her festive board
Beholds her children, separated long
Amid the wide world's ways, assembled now —
A sight at which affection lightens up
With smiles the eye that age has long bedimm'd
I do remember, when I was a child,
How my young heart, a stranger then to care;
With transport leap'd upon this holyday,
As o'er the house, all gay with evergreens,
From friend to friend with joyful speed I ran,
Bidding a merry Christmas to them all.
Those years are past; their pleasures and their pains
Are now like yonder convent-crested hill
That bounds the distant prospect, indistinct,
Yet pictured upon memory's mystic glass
In faint, fair hues. A weary traveller now
I journey o'er the desert mountain tracks
Of Leon, wilds all drear and comfortless,
Where the gray lizards in the noontide sun
Sport on the rocks, and where the goatherd starts
Roused from his sleep at midnight when he hears
The prowling wolf, and falters as he calls
On Saints to save. Here of the friends I think
Who now, I ween, remember me, and fill
The glass of votive friendship. At the name
Will not thy cheek, Beloved, change its hue,
And in those gentle eyes uncall'd for tears
Tremble? I will not wish thee not to weep;
Such tears are free from bitterness, and they
Who know not what it is sometimes to wake;
And weep at midnight, are but instruments
Of Nature's common work. Yes, think of me
My Edith, think that, travelling far away,
Thus I beguile the solitary hours
With many a day-dream, picturing scenes as far
Of peace, and comfort, and domestic bliss,
As ever to the youthful poet's eye
Creative Fancy fashion'd. Think of me.
Though absent, thine; and if a sigh will rise,
And tears, unbidden, at the thought steal down,
Sure hope will cheer thee, and the happy hour
Of meeting soon all sorrow overpay.