There are sounds in the sky when the year grows old, And the winds of the winter blow-- When night and the moon are clear and cold, And the stars shine on the snow, Or wild is the blast and the bitter sleet That beats on the window-pane; But blest on the frosty hills are the feet Of the Christmas time again! Chiming sweet when the night wind swells, Blest is the sound of the Christmas Bells! Dear are the sounds of the Christmas chimes In the land of the ivied towers, And they welcome the dearest of festival times In this Western world of ours! Bright on the holly and mistletoe bough The English firelight falls, And bright are the wreathed evergreens now That gladden our own home walls! And hark! the first sweet note that tells, The welcome of the Christmas Bells! The owl that sits in the ivy's shade, Remote from the ruined tower, Shall start from his drowsy watch afraid When the clock shall strike the hour; And over the fields in their frosty rhyme The cheery sounds shall go, And chime shall answer unto chime Across the moonlit snow! How sweet the lingering music dwells,-- The music of the Christmas Bells. It fell not thus in the East afar Where the Babe in the manger lay; The wise men followed their guiding star To the dawn of a milder day; And the fig and the sycamore gathered green, And the palm-tree of Deborah rose; 'Twas the strange first Christmas the world had seen-- And it came not in storm and snows. Not yet on Nazareth's hills and dells Had floated the sound of Christmas Bells. The cedars of Lebanon shook in the blast Of their own cold mountain air; But nought o'er the wintry plain had passed To tell that the Lord was there! The oak and the olive and almond were still, In the night now worn and thin; No wind of the winter-time roared from the hill To waken the guests at the inn; No dream to them the music tells That is to come from the Christmas Bells! The years that have fled like the leaves on the gale Since the morn of the Miracle-Birth, Have widened the fame of the marvellous tale Till the tidings have filled the earth! And so in the climes of the icy North, And the lands of the cane and the palm, By the Alpine cotter's blazing hearth, And in tropic belts of calm, Men list to-night the welcome swells, Sweet and clear, of Christmas Bells!