The bells :: :: University of Virginia Library

The angels bend in heaven's arch to-night,
And sprinkle snowflakes on the city's streets;
The wind moans round the chimney-tops in fright
And sprightly hail taps every one it meets.

The lamps that stud the white and pearlèd way,
Glare like mad demons thro' the blinding storm;
Shop-windows watch the snow sprites as they play,
Or throw their rays upon each passing form.

'Tis Christmas night; and while from street to street,
The echo hurries, like a startled mouse,
And phantom laughs are mingling with the sleet,
An Old Man sits within an olden house.

The house is quaint, odd-fashioned, and antique;
Grim Time has passed his palm across the roof
And left it wrinkled! 'Tis so dark and bleak
At twilight play the children keep aloof.

There's not a sound in all its sombre halls,
And brooding silence sits upon the stair;
One can most see the “quiet as it crawls”
Along the entry through the biting air.

Why sits the Old Man in the big old room,
Watching the hearth-light o'er the mouldings climb?
The man and chamber in its ghostly gloom
Seem things forgotten in the flight of time.

Why sits he thus beside the wide-mouthed hearth?
Does he call up sweet forms that, like the leaves,
Have mixed with flowers in the wombed earth?
Or does he hear the hail upon the eaves?

The jingling sleigh-bells in the street below,
The goblin sleet that droppeth down the flue,
The huntsman wind that whistles to the snow—
Are these the noises that he listens to?

Or does he catch the echoes of the Past,
Like fine vibrations of a distant bell?
Do memories fall on him thick and fast
As hail without upon the snowy swell?

I wot not either; but the Old Man seems
A link between this mortal life and death—
A dreamy pilgrim to the Land of Dreams,
His life, a feather balanced on a breath.

He bends his head; he hears the panels creak;
Then by the chimney leaves his cushioned chair;
And, with a joy his moistened eyelids speak,
He draws three seats beside his own with care.

He holds his old hands out, as if to grasp
Some other hands; he sighs and smiles and sighs;
Now stands as if within some loving clasp—
His eyes intently gaze in other eyes!

And now he points his phantom guests their seats.
He heaps fresh fuel upon the fire-place;
And all is still, save one quick heart that beats
In yonder clock, within its coffin case.

O, what a queer Old Man! And does he see
Ethereal spirits seated in those chairs?
Do souls come back from God's eternity
To mingle with us and our daily cares?

I do believe it! and 'tis grand to feel
That, when the breezes lift our fevered hair,
Some friend's hand does it, and at ev'ry meal
The loved are near us, round us like the air!

I do believe they're with us all the day,
And o'er our holier hours vigils keep;
That they kneel with us when we kneel to pray,
And bend above us when we fall asleep.

But see, he smiles! O sure some airy one
Has twined a sunbeam round his parted lips;
He hears a voice, a voice for him alone—
We hear it not, nor see the ghost that trips

Around the arm-chair of the dreamy man.
A lip intangible his own lip nears;
It falls so kindly on his thin cheek wan,
The Old Man weeps, and slumbers in his tears.

And every year when holy Christmas comes,
He draws those chairs within the hearth-stone gleams,
And fondly all his viewless household sums,
Then falls asleep 'mid kisses, tears, and dreams.