C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

To the Passing Saint: Christmas

From ‘A Second Book of Verse’

AS to-night you came your way,

Bearing earthward heavenly joy,

Tell me, O dear saint, I pray,

Did you see my little boy?

By some fairer voice beguiled,

Once he wandered from my sight;

He is such a little child,

He should have my love this night.

It has been so many a year,—

Oh, so many a year since then!

Yet he was so very dear;

Surely he will come again.

If upon your way you see

One whose beauty is divine,

Will you send him back to me?

He is lost, and he is mine.

Tell him that his little chair

Nestles where the sunbeams meet;

That the shoes he used to wear

Yearn to kiss his dimpled feet;

Tell him of each pretty toy

That was wont to share his glee;

Maybe that will bring my boy

Back to them, and back to me.

O dear saint, as on you go

Through the glad and sparkling frost,

Bid those bells ring high and low

For a little child that’s lost!

O dear saint, that blessest men

With the grace of Christmas joy,

Soothe this heart with love again,—

Give me back my little boy!