Three Wise Men, One Wise Cat

Top: Nativity scene on Marietta Square (life-size figures cast in marble-based resin, hand-painted by artisans from the House of Fontanini, Bagni di Lucca, Italy)

Bottom: Kato, curled up on my bed (which he thinks is his), following the Christmas carol’s advice to “sleep in heavenly peace”

~

“Christmas Bells”

(The original poem, complete with all seven stanzas, written during the American Civil War by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

“There is no peace on earth,” I said;

“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”