Eunice Tietjens

HERE in this house of mystery and death,

This challenge flung at God, who has set pain

And heart-ache and slow torture in his world,

Dawns Christmas Day.
We have outwatched the night.

Vainly, in tight-lipped silence, we have wrung

From creeping death a piteous hour or two.

Now it is day. The long white corridors,

Naked and empty in the winds of dawn,

Stir in the light, and grow alive again

With flitting nurses and internes in white,

Who talk and laugh together—as they must.

They wish us “Merry Christmas,” and we try

To cover our soul’s nakedness, and smile.

And as we wait, dumb with long agony,

A jingling of loud bells breaks the white calm

Absurdly. A man enters, dressed in red,

Tricked out in furs, white-bearded for the saint

Of rapturous childhood, and his deep eyes wear

A haunting, wistful mask of gaiety.

He laughs and capers, jingles bells and jokes

With mad abandon, speaks a word to us—

A frothy nothing; then, still jingling, goes,

And the white calm returns.
A tiny flame

Set in the vastness of the night he is,

A thin small sound that impishly disturbs

The silence of the spheres, a childish joy

Futile and beautiful, the soul of man

That cries to heaven, “Bring on your thunderbolts—

I still defy!”…

He passes, and we wrap the human warmth

About our shivering souls, and turn us back

To face the darkness of another day.