The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-10-24
MS III Y
Onr Willie.
BY HENRY TInTRop.

Onr Willie.
BY HENRY TINIRoD.
Twas merry Christmas when he came,
Our little boy beneath the sod;
And brighter burned the Christine flame,
And mcrricr sped the Christmas game.
Beca use within the house there lay
A sh ape as tiny as q fay
The Christmas gift OF God!
In wreaths and Sarlands on the walls
The holly hung it's ruby balls,
The mislctoe its pearls;
And Christmas trees fantastic fruits
Woke laughter like choir of flutes
From happy boys and girls.
For the mlrth, which else had swelled as
shaill
Az a school let loose to its errant will,
Was softened by the thought,
That in dim hushed room above,
4 mothers pains in q mothers love
We're only just forgot.
The jest, the tale, the toast, the SIec,
All took Il sober tone;
We spoke of the babe upstairs as we
Held festival for him alone.
When the bells Eang III the Christmas morn,
1t scarcely seemed 4 sin to say
That they rang because the babe was born,
Not less than for the sacred day.
Ahl Christ forgive US for the crime,
Which drowned the memories Of the time
In Il merely mortal bliss!
We owned the error, when the mirth
OF another Chris tmas lit the hearth
vi every nome D1t TINS
When, in that lonely battle-ground,
With every Christmas sight and sound
Removed or stunned, we kept
a mournful Christmas by tho mound
Where little Willie slept!
All, haplcss mother. darling wife!
| might say nothing more,
and the dull cold world would hold
The story of that precious life
AS amply told!
l,of
That worlds unsympathctic eyes
Lay other relics from our store
OF tender memories?
What could it know of the JOY and love
That throbbed and smiled and wcpt above
An unreSponsivc thing?
And who could share the ecstatic thrill
With which we watched the up-turncd bill
or on. bird at its living spring?
Shall we tell how, i'll the times gone by
Beneath all changes of the Sky,
And in an ordinary home,
Amid the city's din,
Life was to us crystal dome,
Our babe the flame therein:
All! this were jargon Oh the mart;
And though some gentle friend.
And many and many suffering heart
Would weep and comprehend,
Yet even these might fail to see
What we saw daily in the child
Not the mere creature undetied,
But the winged chcrub soon to be,
reach
AT angels flnger-tips,
And that murmur like mystic speech
Upon the rosy lips,
That something in the serious face
1Iolicr than even its infant grace,
And that rapt gaze on empty space,
Which made us, half believing, say,
: s'Ah, little widc-cyed seer, who knows
But that for you this chamber glows
With stately shapes and solemn shows?"
Which touched us, too, with vague alarms,
Lest in the circle of our arms
We held being less akin
TO his parents in u world of sin
Than to beings not of clay;
How could we speak in human phrase
Of such scarce earthly traits and ways
What would not seem
A dotlnG dream,
In the creed of those sordid days:
No, let us keep,
Deep, deep,
IL sorrowing heart and aching brain,
This story hidden with the pain,
Which, since that blue October night
When Willie vanished from our sight,
Must haunt Us even i'll our sleep.
In the gloom of the chamber where he
died,
And by that grave which, through our
care,
From lulc to Yule of every year,
Is made like spring to bloom;
And where, at times, we catch the sigh
As of an angel floating nigh,
Who longs but has not power to tell
That in that violet-slrouded cell
Lies nothing better than the shell
Which he had cast aside;
BY that sweet Gravc-in that dark room,
We may weave at will for each others
ear,
Of that life, and that love- and that early
doom,
The tale which is shadowed here;
To us alone it will alwaVS be
AS fresh as our own misery;
But enough, alas! for the world is said.
IN the brief Here lieth" Of the dead