Explore "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Kingsley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It chanced upon the merry merry Christmas eve, / I went sighing past the church across the moorland dreary -- / 'Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave, / And the bells but mock the wailing round, they sing so cheery.
How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again? / Still in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary / The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain, / Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be cheery.'
Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere, / Beneath the stars, across the snow, like clear bells ringing, / And a voice within cried -- 'Listen! -- Christmas carols even here! / Though thou be dumb, yet o'er their work the stars and snows are singing.
Blind! I live, I love, I reign; and all the nations through / With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing.
Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do, / Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it angels singing.'
Eversley, 1849.