The Shadow
The Sara Rice Pryor Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy held its annual Christmas dinner in December at Western Sizzlin’ in Covington.
Members shared Christmas readings and exchanged gifts.
Readings included a poem, Christmas Night of 1962, written by William Gordon McCabe.
“The wintry blast goes wailing by, The snow is falling overhead;
“I hear the lonely sentry’s tread, And distant watch-fires light the sky.
“Dim forms go flitting through the gloom; The soldiers cluster round the blaze.
“To talk of other Christmas days, And softly speak of home and home.
“My sabre swinging overhead gleams in the watch-fire’s fitful glow, while fiercely drives the blinding snow, And memory leads me to the dead.
“My thoughts go wandering to and fro, vibrating between the now and then; I see the low-browed home again, The old hall wreathed with mistletoe.
“And sweetly from the far-off years comes borne the laughter faint and low, The voices of the long ago!
“My eyes are wet with tender tears. I feel again the mother-kiss, I see again the glad surprise. That lightened up the tranquil eyes and brimmed them o’er with tears of bliss.
“As, rushing from the old hall-door, she fondly clasped her wayward boy. Her face all radiant with the joy. She felt to see him home once more.”
