Tonight is all the year to me,
When, out of all the ripened days,
Sorrow is sifted, Beauty stays,
The winnowed grain of Memory.
Here all the months their emblems strew:
For April, there is Youth’s delight;
For May, there are these blossoms bright;
For all Spring’s love-time, there is You.
The Yule-tide flame snaps blithe below;
Bright holly berries burn above;
And Fancy builds a dream thereof —
A dream of summer ‘mid the snow.
For Autumn, there is harvest hoard
Of all the toiling world’s good will;
For Winter, there’s the wondrous thrill
Of laughter ’round the laden board.
Methinks tonight, my happy heart
Rides, like the Wise Men, from afar,
Back through the ages, with a star
For certain guide and errless chart;
Back through the ages, unto Them
Who in the lowly manger lay,
Where stolid kine soft watched by day
Above the Babe of Bethlehem.
And all the hope, the joy, that He
Gave to all Christmas-tides of Time
Lifts here a pinnacle sublime —
Tonight is all of Life to me!
