Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The Old Sexton’s Christmas Dream. ‘Tis Christmas eve, and a cold clear night, And the earth is filled with the white moon-light, Which falls through the frosty air from on high, From the crystal blue of a winter’s sky, And glistening rests on the drifted snow, And gleams on the half-iced stream below; And the slumbering earth, robed in white, arrays With multitudinous diamond sprays, By the Frost-king there unradiant strewn, Till illumed by the white-fire touch of the moon. Round the mountain’s base the river glides, 'Neath the shadowy pine on its rugged sides, And creeps through the vale by the evergreen shade; By the fringing willows, all leafless made; By the hazel-copse, by the ice-bound wheel Of the moated, long unbusy mill, And into the quiet burg hard by, Whose quaint tile roofs sharply rise on high, Then onward flows to the distant wood, Where its voice alone stirs the solitude. The village church caps a neighboring hill, O'ergrown with ivy and tufted moss, 'Neath giant poplars weirdly still, Which a shadowy net-work weave across The snow’s white folds on roof and tower, (There deftly spread as by magic power); While above gleams the spire with its cross on high, Set 'mid the brilliants that fill the sky. From the gothic windows a dim light creeps Through the colored panes, and softly glows On the whitened sills, where it restless sleeps, Or steals o'er the clustering moss that grows On mullion and transom and eaves above, (By lacing ivy there interwove); Then fades within?to appear again Softly tinting the many-colored pane. Old Kasper, the sexton, had wrought within As the midnight hour crept on apace, With clusters of holly and evergreen Adorning the walls of the holy place, Till weary grown; yet with hear…
