Long days to be merry in and nights without fear.There are *64* illustrations on this page! The glisten of enthusiasm and a sense of wonder. Sunlight, moonlight, firelight.Ī large hand reaching down for a small hand, impromptu praise, an unexpected kiss, a straight answer. Birdsong, butterflies, clouds, and rainbows. The open sky, the brown earth, the leafy tree, the golden sand, the blue water, the stars in their courses, and the awareness of these. The knowledge of being loved beyond demand or reciprocity, praise or blame, for those so loved are never lost. The beacon of hope, which lights all darkness. Life without faith is a dismal dead-end street. The power of faith, engendered in mutual trust. Truth is the beginning of every good thing. The passion for truth, founded on precept and example. Justice is the bulwark against violence and oppression and the repository of human dignity. The talent for sharing, for it is not so much what we give as what we share.
If we falter at discipline, life will do it for us. Everything changes but the landscape of the heart.Īttention, for one day it will be too late.Ī sense of value, the inalienable place of the individual in the scheme of things, with all that accrues to the individual - self-reliance, courage, conviction, self-respect, and respect for others.
It must be devised out of responsibility and profound caring - a home-made present of selfless love. It must be something more constructed of stouter fabric discovered among the cluttered aisles and tinseled bargain counters of experience, winnowed from what little we have learned. What can we give them to take along? For the wild shores of Beyond, no toy or bauble will do. It seems certain that they will travel roads we never thought of, navigate strange seas, cross unimagined boundaries, and glimpse horizons beyond our power to visualize. From the innocent kingdom of implicit belief to that uncomfortable arena where the implacable mind battles the intractable heart, the faces of children at Christmas are lighted with visions of things to come. Rosy with cold, arabesqued with snowflakes, leaning into the wind, or drowsing before the fire, their eyes large, they look and listen, as if they glimpsed the peripheries of miracle or heard a soundless music in the air. In the long twilight of the year, the faces of the children grow luminous. I have reformatted the text for easy reading but it is otherwise exactly as it was written in that first printing. The original text layout was centered, with linebreaks added mainly for aesthetic purposes.
The poem originally appeared in the December 1964 issue of McCall's magazine and is attributed to Margaret Cousins, who was managing editor of the magazine at the time.
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