By J. C. OLIVER

O MONTH for famed! For festive
days and nights renowned,
Joy fraught, with hallowed
benedictions crowned.
Life's annual clearinghouse
for retrospective thought,
Where pensive memory recalls
the smiles, the tears,
The hopes and joys of youth,
the loves of vanished years,
And sighs to see the havoc, sad, that
Time has wrought

O hoary month! In regions of the
north and east
The song of bird and rippling of the
brook have ceased
And Nature's thousand charms of
summer days have fled.
There Boreas reigns, fierce God of
wind and storms
And winter all of verdure, into brown
and white transforms
And leaves no trace of life
and beauty sped.

O happy month! When keen
anticipation, sweet,
Flies swift on wings
of ardent love to greet
With gifts the friend, the lover
or the kindred near.
As Winter closer draws
his icy fettered chains
The heart expands
and love unselfish reigns
And speeds its largess
to the ones most dear.

Illustrious month
of most illustrious birth!
Good tidings, peace
and joy to all the earth
A heavenly choir announced
when Christ was born.
No other birth
such mighty portent bore,
This Prince of Peace whom heaven
and earth adore
How thrills the heart of thought
of Christmas morn!

 

reprinted from the
Blue Springs Sentinel
Blue Springs, Nebraska
December 20, 1917edition
(original newspaper source
credited to the Los Angeles Times)