A Christmas Tree

To night the children meet with glee
To view the fruits on Christmas Tree,
And when its beauties we behold
We’re very sorry we are old.
The children all they have good cause
To feel grateful to old Santa Claus,
And to each teacher, and each friend,
Who did these handsome presents send.
To us it is a pleasant treat,
With so many friends here to meet,
You’ve well conducted public school
Where master doth judicious rule;
The union it doth give its strength,
Gives section breadth, as well as length.
Nissouri here should build a Hall,
For exhibitions in the Fall;
Its claims they cannot be ignored,
For first in township stands Thamesford.
This village keeps up with the age,
For it hath a good daily stage
And in its efforts never fails
To carry passengers and mails.

Where this text comes from

First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L22.

Cite this poem

James McIntyre (1828?–1906). “A Christmas Tree.” First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/james-mcintyre/a-christmas-tree/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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