THE CHRISTMAS MESSENGER
By The North gate of Heaven, the round cherub sat, tossing the cherry wood in,
he fed the great furnace of the bright northern fires which boomed out a long lonely din
“Gabriel, smabriel, woopteedoo whoop, is no sculpture of marble, but a pillar of poop!
He blares his big trumpet, ho rooty toot tooty,
with his nose in the air just so snooty, snoot, snooty!”
The cherub rumbled, and tumbled, and grumbled away, till his firelight rosy-red cheeks, splashed tears of his sorrow, down the sides of the oven, in down- streaming bubbling creeks.
The spattering and sputtering wide rivers of desire, in such sighings, and heavings, soon drowned out the fire.
Soon the cold crept in, the flowing rivulets froze, and the sniffling cherub grew a cherry red nose.
“Hoh! Hoh! Hoh! that smarts!” he said shaking his pate,
when a great voice echoed ‘round that cold northern gate.
“Nicholas, has your jealousy of Gabriel been so worth this folly,
you once were so rollicking, merry, and jolly.”
The Cherub hopped to his feet with his hands in his back,
whistling nervously, ‘Simpleton Jack.’
“So you wish, like Gabriel, to bear good tidings,
winding down through earth winds, in soaring and glidings.”
“Oh, everlasting master,” and with sparkling eye, added,
“I could do it far faster.”
“Faster than Gabriel , the great messenger angel?”
“Certainly,” answered the cherub, coyly grinning his ‘angle’.
“I would charge down through the clouds with great breathless speeds, if you lend me the chariots and heavenly steeds.”
“My boy, you shall race winter clouds stormy and wild, but you’ll bear your graces on behalf of the Child.
And so, a new messenger took old Gabriel’s place,
with a red cherry nose and a bright cherub face.
