The Seventh Day of Christmas

In memory of our brave fighters...

A Christmas Rhyme
by Carrie Bell Sinclair

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
I would weave a joyous lay
For the loved ones who are absent
On this holy Christmas day;
For the brave who are in battle
I would breathe a holy prayer,
Oh! Father, in thy mercy,
Shield the loved ones that are there!

Blessings on the war-worn soldiers
Marching through the winter rain,
Health to the patient sufferer
On his weary couch of pain.
Can the heart at home be merry
While our war-stained banner waves
On a distant field of battle,
O'er so many new made graves?

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
Oh! hearts so light and gay,
Have you bought a single token
For some suffering one to-day?
Do you miss, amid glad greetings,
The one who is not here
And wish him Merry Christmas!
Though it cannot reach his ear?

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
Still the glad sound ringeth out;
For each guileless little prattler
Has caught the joyous shout;
Here, too, little hands are busy,
Playing with a Christmas toy,
While the mother smiles in blessings
On her darling little boy.

There are eyes that watch with weeping
On this holy Christmas day;
Thinking only of the loved ones,
Of the loved ones far away;
There are hearts now sadly pining
For an absent one to come;
Longing for his smiles of gladness
To make sunshine in their home.

They have gathered holly berries
And the evergreen so bright,
And garlands they are twining
For the walls at home to-night;
But my thoughts will sadly wander
To another land than ours,
And the cypress wreath be woven
Amid all my Christmas flowers.

Found on Rick's Civil War Poetry