2-982-647 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Shepherd's Christmas - a sketch on Brighton Downs - drawn by E. Duncan, 1858. 'The wild winds whistle round him, he heeds not the blast; The chill snow-wreaths encrown him, his soul's with the past. Soft! he hears the glad strain, as its tones pealed on high From the home of his youth in the winters gone by. Hark! the voice of its cheer, through his dreaming it thrills As he stands, a poor shepherd, forlorn on the hills. "Gather round! Let the draught in your beakers flow bright! 'Tis the wassail of wassails we welcome to-night! Summon hither your hounds from their fast on the wold; Turn the ox to the stall, and the sheep to the fold: To the weakling leave care, and the sorrow that kills, And rejoice, 0 ye shepherds, that watch on the hills! "Gather in from the storm-gather in from the snow-But yet spare one brief thought for the children of woe; While ye bask in the blaze of the warm Christmas light, Breathe one sigh to the dark and the houseless to-night; And to Him who each spirit with thankfulness fills, Him who stood, the "Chief Shepherd," alone on the hills'. By Eleanora L. Hervey. From the Christmas Supplement to the "Illustrated London News", 1858.