Envoy

            The brazen bells of laughing lands
                In swelling echoes wildly ring,
            And over seas and hoary strands
                This Christmas carol sing.


    "Awaken, O, heart of the race,
        To bountiful riches from Eden above,
    Till roses of beauty and lilies of grace
        Shall sweeten the languishing bosom with love;
    Till virulent sorrow and venomous hate
        Their poisonous curses of misery cease,
    And rapturous fortune, felicitous fate,
        Have rule in the musical meadows of peace.

    "The voices of morning to men,
        In passionate whispers of bounteous glee,
    Are pulsing the gladness of Christmas again
        O'er plains of the prairie and sounds of the sea;
    Rejoice a...

    When Christmas comes, what pleasures spring
    From drooping hearts on happy wing,
        Like joyous birds that soaring rise
        From hidden coverts to the skies.
    And echo in the chimes that ring!

    Glad millions in wild rapture sing
    Hosannaed hopes of welcoming,
        While praises blend in harmonies,
        When Christmas comes.

    Ah, happy hours! Around them cling
    The dearest joys that life may bring,
        And all the world's despairing cries
        Are soothed to sleep with lullabies
    That banish every bitter thing,
        When Christmas comes!

    Love, thou gayest fancy-weaver,
    Heart-betrayer, soul-deceiver,
    Come with all thy clinging kisses;
    Bringing all thy beaming blisses;
    It may serve the cynic's parts,
        If he curse and if he scout thee,
    But, O, where were gentle hearts,
        If they had to live without thee!

    Weave the spells of thy beguiling
    'Round and 'round me with thy smiling,
    Till the ashen cheek is beaming,
    And the faded eye is gleaming;
    Millions may endure the fight
        In the battle vain to end thee,
    But when taste they thy delight
        They will serve thee and defend thee.

    Bring thy little winsome graces
    And the sweets of glad embraces,
    Till the pleasures all are dancing
    Into mazy wh...

So, come! though favors I bestow
Cannot be called extensive,
Who better than my friend should know
That they're at least expensive?

Prince, show me the quickest way and best
To gain the subject of my moan;
We've neither spinsters nor relics out West--
These do I love, and these alone.

Ye voices, that arose
After the Evening's close,
And whispered to my restless heart repose!

Go, breathe it in the ear
Of all who doubt and fear,
And say to them, "Be of good cheer!"

Ye sounds, so low and calm,
That in the groves of balm
Seemed to me like an angel's psalm!

Go, mingle yet once more
With the perpetual roar
Of the pine forest dark and hoar!

Tongues of the dead, not lost
But speaking from deaths frost,
Like fiery tongues at Pentecost!

Glimmer, as funeral lamps,
Amid the chills and damps
Of the vast plain where Death encamps!