Christmas: Its Origin, Celebration and Significance

Christmas Bells

Anon

There are sounds in the sky when the year grows old,

And the winds of the winter blow—

When night and the moon are clear and cold,

And the stars shine on the snow,

Or wild is the blast and the bitter sleet

That beats on the window-pane;

But blest on the frosty hills are the feet

Of the Christmas time again!

Chiming sweet when the night wind swells,

Blest is the sound of the Christmas Bells!

Dear are the sounds of the Christmas chimes

In the land of the ivied towers,

And they welcome the dearest of festival times

In this Western world of ours!

Bright on the holly and mistletoe bough

The English firelight falls,

And bright are the wreathed evergreens now

That gladden our own home walls!

And hark! the first sweet note that tells,

The welcome of the Christmas Bells!

The owl that sits in the ivy’s shade,

Remote from the ruined tower,

Shall start from his drowsy watch afraid

When the clock shall strike the hour;

And over the fields in their frosty rhyme

The cheery sounds shall go,

And chime shall answer unto chime

Across the moonlit snow!

How sweet the lingering music dwells,—

The music of the Christmas Bells.

It fell not thus in the East afar

Where the Babe in the manger lay;

The wise men followed their guiding star

To the dawn of a milder day;

And the fig and the sycamore gathered green,

And the palm-tree of Deborah rose;

’Twas the strange first Christmas the world had seen—

And it came not in storm and snows.

Not yet on Nazareth’s hills and dells

Had floated the sound of Christmas Bells.

The cedars of Lebanon shook in the blast

Of their own cold mountain air;

But nought o’er the wintry plain had passed

To tell that the Lord was there!

The oak and the olive and almond were still,

In the night now worn and thin;

No wind of the winter-time roared from the hill

To waken the guests at the inn;

No dream to them the music tells

That is to come from the Christmas Bells!

The years that have fled like the leaves on the gale

Since the morn of the Miracle-Birth,

Have widened the fame of the marvellous tale

Till the tidings have filled the earth!

And so in the climes of the icy North,

And the lands of the cane and the palm,

By the Alpine cotter’s blazing hearth,

And in tropic belts of calm,

Men list to-night the welcome swells,

Sweet and clear, of Christmas Bells!

They are ringing to-night through the Norway firs,

And across the Swedish fells,

And the Cuban palm-tree dreamily stirs

To the sound of those Christmas Bells!

They ring where the Indian Ganges rolls

Its flood through the rice-fields wide;

They swell the far hymns of the Lapps and Poles

To the praise of the Crucified.

Sweeter than tones of the ocean’s shells

Mingle the chimes of the Christmas Bells!

The years come not back that have circled away

With the past of the Eastern land,

When He plucked the corn on the Sabbath day

And healed the withered hand:

But the bells shall join in a joyous chime

For the One who walked the sea,

And ring again for the better time

Of the Christ that is to be!

Then ring!—for earth’s best promise dwells

In ye, O joyous Prophet Bells!

Ring out at the meeting of night and morn

For the dawn of a happier day!

Lo, the stone from our faith’s great sepulchre torn

The angels have rolled away!

And they come to us here in our low abode,

With words like the sunrise gleam,—

Come down and ascend by that heavenly road

That Jacob saw in his dream.

Spirit of love, that in music dwells,

Open our hearts with the Christmas Bells!

Help us to see that the glad heart prays

As well as the bended knees;

That there are in our own as in ancient days

The Scribes and the Pharisees;

That the Mount of Transfiguration still

Looks down on these Christian lands,

And the glorified ones from that holy hill

Are reaching their helping hands.

These be the words our music tells

Of solemn joy, O Christmas Bells!