To Santa Claus

Most tangible of all the gods that be,     O Santa Claus - our own since Infancy!     As first we scampered to thee - now, as then,     Take us as children to thy heart again.     Be wholly good to us, just as of old:     As a pleased father, let thine arms infold     Us, homed within the haven of thy love,     And all the cheer and wholesomeness thereof.     Thou lone reality, when O so long     Life's unrealities have wrought us wrong:     Ambition hath allured us, fame likewise,     And all that promised honor in men's eyes.     Throughout the world's evasions, wiles, and shifts,     Thou only bidest stable as thy gifts:     A grateful king re-ruleth from thy lap,     Crowned with a little tinselled soldier-cap:     A mighty general - a nation's pride -     Thou givest again a rocking-horse to ride,     And wildly glad he groweth as the grim     Old jurist with the drum thou givest him:     The sculptor's chisel, at thy mirth's command,     Is as a whistle in his boyish hand;     The painters model fadeth utterly,     And there thou standest, and he painteth thee:     Most like a winter pippin, sound and fine     And tingling-red that ripe old face of thine,     Set in thy frosty beard of cheek and chin     As midst the snows the thaws of spring set in.     Ho! Santa Claus - our own since Infancy -     Most tangible of all the gods that be!     As first we scampered to thee - now, as then,     Take us as children to thy heart again.