I Will Honor Christmas In My Heart,

There Have Been Occasions In My Later Life (i Suppose As In Most Lives) When I Have Felt For A Time As If A Thick Curtain Had Fallen On All Its Interest And Romance, To Shut Me Out From Anything Save Dull Endurance Any More. Never Has That Curtain Dropped So Heavy And Blank, As When My Way In Life Lay Stretched Out Straight Before Me Through The Newly-entered Road Of Apprenticeship To Joe.

How Many Families, Whose Members Have Been Dispersed And Scattered Far And Wide, In The Restless Struggles Of Life, Are Then Reunited, And Meet Once Again In That Happy State Of Companionship And Mutual Goodwill, Which Is A Source Of Such Pure And Unalloyed Delight; And One So Incompatible With The Cares And Sorrows Of The World, That The Religious Belief Of The Most Civilized Nations, And The Rude Traditions Of The Roughest Savages, Alike Number It Among The First Joys Of A Future Condition Of Existence, Provided For The Blessed And Happy!

Judiciously Show A Cat Milk, If You Wish Her To Thirst For It. Judiciously Show A Dog His Natural Prey, If You Wish Him To Bring It Down One Day.

Blackened Skeleton Arms Of Wood By The Wayside Pointed Upward To The Convent, As If The Ghosts Of Former Travellers, Overwhelmed By The Snow, Haunted The Scene Of Their Distress. Icicle-hung Caves And Cellars Built For Refuges From Sudden Storms, Were Like So Many Whispers Of The Perils Of The Place; Never-resting Wreaths And Mazes Of Mist Wandered About, Hunted By A Moaning Wind; And Snow, The Besetting Danger Of The Mountain, Against Which All Its Defences Were Taken, Drifted Sharply Down.

Dreams Are The Bright Creatures Of Poem And Legend, Who Sport On Earth In The Night Season, And Melt Away In The First Beam Of The Sun, Which Lights Grim Care And Stern Reality On Their Daily Pilgrimage Through The World.