It is not often Sunday draws
Me to that house where good men come;
Yet worship I, and the same cause
Which sends them there keeps me at home.

But on one holy Christmas morn
I took an unaccustomed road
To church, to hear how Christ was born,
And how to walk the path He showed.

I cheerful said, always some good
Falls in our way, however vext;
Though scarce a worshipper, I would,
If not a sermon, find a text.

O'er snow new-fallen pure and fine
I walked the virgin world alone;
But soon a tiny trail crossed mine,
And near, a field-mouse dead as stone.

Clumsy with snow his little feet
Had borne him just across the way
In search of home, or else to meet
And feast with friend that Christmas-day.

There in an inch or two of snow
I found him in the morning sun;
His limbs were stiff, his head was low,
His work, whate'er it was, was done.

He held no backward-going pace
But in his last endeavor died;
'T is well with thee, I tried to trace
On the blank tablet by his side.

Thence onward slow my steps I paced
Beside the drooping evergreen,
Or where the bare oak interlaced
The sky that on it seemed to lean.

These splendors passed, at length I near
The church steps with the goats and sheep;
A goodly flock! prepared to hear
The tale that eighteen centuries weep.

The preacher droned and canted well;
The men dozed off, the women stared;
Hurtled the dread words heaven and hell,
But no one heard and no one cared.

I not asleep, nor quite awake.
Numbered the nothings of the house,
Revolving which my text to make,
The living priest or that dead mouse.

But ere the sermon had its close
And picked each dry bone of the feast,
The words reversed themselves and rose
The living mouse, the phantom priest.