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| HERE in this house of mystery and death, | |
| This challenge flung at God, who has set pain | |
| And heart-ache and slow torture in his world, | |
Dawns Christmas Day.
We have outwatched the night. | |
| Vainly, in tight-lipped silence, we have wrung | 5 |
| From creeping death a piteous hour or two. | |
| Now it is day. The long white corridors, | |
| Naked and empty in the winds of dawn, | |
| Stir in the light, and grow alive again | |
| With flitting nurses and internes in white, | 10 |
| Who talk and laugh together—as they must. | |
| |
| They wish us “Merry Christmas,” and we try | |
| To cover our soul’s nakedness, and smile. | |
| And as we wait, dumb with long agony, | |
| A jingling of loud bells breaks the white calm | 15 |
| Absurdly. A man enters, dressed in red, | |
| Tricked out in furs, white-bearded for the saint | |
| Of rapturous childhood, and his deep eyes wear | |
| A haunting, wistful mask of gaiety. | |
| He laughs and capers, jingles bells and jokes | 20 |
| With mad abandon, speaks a word to us— | |
| A frothy nothing; then, still jingling, goes, | |
And the white calm returns.
A tiny flame | |
| Set in the vastness of the night he is, | |
| A thin small sound that impishly disturbs | 25 |
| The silence of the spheres, a childish joy | |
| Futile and beautiful, the soul of man | |
| That cries to heaven, “Bring on your thunderbolts— | |
| I still defy!”… | |
| |
| He passes, and we wrap the human warmth | 30 |
| About our shivering souls, and turn us back | |
| To face the darkness of another day. | |
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