The First Christmas Tree by Henry Van Dyke

Withered leaves still clung to the branches of the oak: torn and / faded banners of the departed summer. The bright crimson of autumn / had long since disappeared, bleached away by the storms and the / cold. But to-night these tattered remnants of glory were red / again: ancient bloodstains against the dark-blue sky. For an / immense fire had been kindled in front of the tree. Tongues of / ruddy flame, fountains of ruby sparks, ascended through the / spreading limbs and flung a fierce illumination upward and around. / ward and around. The pale, pure moonlight that bathed the / surrounding forests was quenched and eclipsed here. Not a beam of / it sifted down-ward through the branches of the oak. It stood like / a pillar of cloud between the still light of heaven and the / crackling, flashing fire of earth.

But the fire itself was invisible to Winfried and his companions. / A great throng of people were gathered around it in a half-circle, / their backs to the open glade, their faces towards the oak. Seen / against that glowing background, it was but the silhouette of a / crowd, vague, black, formless, mysterious.