Christmas Jenny (in A New England Nun) Mary E. Wilkins
A Christmas Sermon R.L. Stevenson
The Boy who Brought Christmas Alice Morgan
Christmas Stories Charles Dickens
The Christmas Guest Selma Lagerloef
The Legend of the Christmas Rose " "
GLOUCESTER MOORS
WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY
A mile behind is Gloucester
town
Where the fishing fleets put
in,
A mile ahead the land dips
down
And the woods and farms begin.
Here, where the moors stretch
free
In the high blue afternoon,
Are the marching sun and talking
sea,
And the racing winds that
wheel and flee
On the flying heels of June.
Jill-o’er-the-ground
is purple blue,
Blue is the quaker-maid,
The wild geranium holds its
dew
Long in the boulder’s
shade.
Wax-red hangs the cup
From the huckleberry boughs,
In barberry bells the grey
moths sup,
Or where the choke-cherry
lifts high up
Sweet bowls for their carouse.
Over the shelf of the sandy
cove
Beach-peas blossom late.
By copse and cliff the swallows
rove
Each calling to his mate.
Seaward the sea-gulls go,
And the land birds all are
here;
That green-gold flash was
a vireo,
And yonder flame where the
marsh-flags grow
Was a scarlet tanager.
This earth is not the steadfast
place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies
pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and
dip;
With velvet plunge and soft
upreel
She swings and steadies to
her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship.
These summer clouds she sets
for sail,
The sun is her masthead light,
She tows the moon like a pinnace
frail
Where her phospher wake churns
bright,
Now hid, now looming clear,
On the face of the dangerous
blue
The star fleets tack and wheel
and veer,
But on, but on does the old
earth steer
As if her port she knew.
God, dear God! Does she
know her port,
Though she goes so far about?
Or blind astray, does she
make her sport
To brazen and chance it out?
I watched where her captains
passed:
She were better captainless.
Men in the cabin, before the
mast,
But some were reckless and
some aghast,
And some sat gorged at mess.