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Letitia Elizabeth Landon - Thoughts Of Christmas-Day In India
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IT is Christmas, and the sunshine 
	Lies golden on the fields,
	And flowers of white and purple
	Yonder fragrant creeper yields.

	Like the plumes of some bold warrior,
	The cocoa-tree on high,
	Lifts aloft its feathery branches,
	Amid the deep blue sky.

	From yonder shadowy peepul,
	The pale fair lilac dove,
	Like music from a temple,
	Sings a song of grief and love.

	The earth is bright with blossoms,
	And a thousand jewelled wings,
	Mid the green boughs of the tamarind
	A sudden sunshine flings.

	For the East, is earth`s first-born,
	And hath a glorious dower,
	As Nature there had lavished
	Her beauty and her power.

	And yet I pine for England,
	For my own—my distant home:
	My heart is in that island,
	Where`er my steps may roam.

	It is merry there at Christmas—
	We have no Christmas here;
	`Tis a weary thing, a summer
	That lasts throughout the year

	I remember how the banners
	Hung round our ancient hall,
	Bound with wreaths of shining holly,
	Brave winter`s coronal.

	And above each rusty helmet
	Waved a new and cheering plume,
	A branch of crimson berries,
	And the latest rose in bloom.

	And the white and pearly misletoe
	Hung half concealed o`er head,
	I remember one sweet maiden,
	Whose cheek it dyed with red.

	The morning waked with carols,
	A young and joyous band
	Of small and rosy songsters,
	Came tripping hand in hand.

	And sang beneath our windows
	Just as the round red sun
	Began to melt the hoar-frost,
	And the clear cold day begun.

	And at night the aged harper
	Played his old tunes o`er and o`er;
	From sixteen up to sixty,
	All were dancing on that floor.

	Those were the days of childhood,
	The buoyant and the bright;
	When hope was life`s sweet sovereign,
	And the heart and step were light.

	I shall come again—a stranger
	To all that once I knew,
	For the hurried steps of manhood
	From life`s flowers have dash`d the dew.

	I yet may ask their welcome,
	And return from whence I came;
	But a change is wrought within me,
	They will not seem the same

	For my spirits are grown weary,
	And my days of youth are o`er,
	And the mirth of that glad season
	Is what I can feel no more.
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