Page:Over the river, and other poems.djvu/54
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48
THE EVENING LESSON.
Nay, my darling knows them already:
She wishes for something true;
So I'll tell her a sweet, strange story,
Old, yet forever new.
Once, in the past's dim ages,
In a country far away,
On just such a starlit night as this,
An Infant in slumber lay.
But not in a costly cradle
Was the Baby hushed to rest;
Not on a downy pillow
Was his pure white forehead pressed.
It was a dismal stable;
Nestled upon the hay,
In a dark and narrow manger,