Again, with his little brood 'round him,
He sits by the fair mother-wife;
He knows that the angels have crowned him
With the truest, best riches of life;
And the hearts of the children, untroubled,
Are filled with the gay Christmas-tide;
And the gifts for sweet Maudie are doubled,
Tis her birthday, beside.

Again,--ah, dear Jesus, have pity -
He finds in the chill, waning day,
That one has come home from the city -
Frail Maudie, whom love led astray.
She lies with her babe on her bosom -
Half-hid by the snow's fleecy spread;
A bud and a poor trampled blossom -
And both are quite dead.

So fair and so fragile! just twenty -
How mocking the bells sound to-night!
She starved in this great land of plenty,
When she tried to grope back to the light.
Christ. are Thy disciples inhuman,
Or only for MEN hast Thou died?
No mercy is shown to a woman
Who once steps aside.

Again he leans over the shrouded
Still form of the mother and wife;
Very lonely the way seems, and clouded,