A Christmas Faggot/Yule Tide

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775607A Christmas Faggot — Yule TideAlfred Gurney

YULE TIDE.

’They bring me sorrow touched with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.’

TENNYSON, In Memoriam.


The Royal birthday dawns again,
A stricken world to bless;
And sufferers forget their pain,
And mourners their distress.


Love sings to-day; her eyes so fair
With happy tears are wet:
She is too humble to despair,
Too faithful to forget.


Her voice is very soft and sweet,
Her heart is brave and strong;
Her vassal, I would fain repeat
Some fragments of her song.


A Birthday-song my heart would sing
Its rapture to express;
My Father’s son must be a king,
And share His consciousness.


Of God’s Self-knowledge comes the Word
That utters all His Thought;
That Word made Flesh by all is heard
Who seek as they are sought.


His seeking and His finding make
Our search an easy thing;
He sows good seed, and bids us take
The joys of harvesting.


Yet must His children do their part,
And what He gives accept;
No heart can understand His Heart
That has not bled and wept.


All seasons, bring they bale or bliss,
His priceless treasures hold;
The Winter’s silver all is His,
And His the Summer’s gold.


Life’s harvest is not reaped until
The Christ within has grown
To perfect manhood, and self-will
By love is overthrown.


Such manhood gained concludes the strife
That makes the babe a boy;
’Tis thus the seed becomes a life,
The life becomes a joy.


The eyes that weep are eyes that see,
And swift are pilgrim-feet;
Ah! hope at length may come to be
Than memory more sweet.


So keeping festival to-day,
With children's laughter near,
It is not hard to sing and pray,
’Tis hard to doubt or fear.


Father, my heart to Thee I bring,
To Thee my song address;
From Winter pain and toil of Spring
Grows Summer happiness.