Christmas Eve

By Dick Perue

Seated at my window, watching the many pass along,

loaded down with bundles, humming a merry Christmas song;

while great white flakes of fleecy snow, are falling gently down,

covering white the steeples and the bare and frozen ground.

Night is closing in with music sweet of sleigh bells’ jingle,

for it is Christmas Eve and tomorrow comes Kris Kringle.

As I watch from out my window in dim uncertain light,

I think of little throbbing hearts, in hopefulness tonight.

I think of all the stockings hanging, presents to receive,

on this mirthful night of nights, on this merry Christmas Eve.

The ghosts of other Christmas day come trooping in a line;

oh, where have gone the years since I first remembered Christmas time.

The flakes of snow keep falling in silent benediction.

I sigh because old Santa Claus is but a childish fiction.

How well do I remember when the truth first dawned on me

that Santa Claus was father, tying gifts on the Christmas tree?

The hours run on and still I watch the softly falling snow,

lost in reverie of times and places, in the long ago.

The old Cathedral bell at last rings out the midnight hour,

“Peace on Earth, good will,” it sweetly chimes, Christ’s priceless dower.

My heart in sadness throbs, thinking of children’s stockings hung,

and parents poor in purse but rich in love, whose hearts are wrung

for no Christmas gifts will gladden, eager ones tomorrow,

‘mid these festive Christmas times, this is my only sorrow.

In every stroke of midnight bell, at merry Christmas time,

there is a promise rich proclaimed, in every peeling chime

thank God the lowly share this royal promise unto man;

’tis Christ’s words to the world, “I go, but I shall come again.”

– Willis George Emerson

Message published in the Dec. 25, 1908 issue of The Cheyenne Leader.