XXVIII.

THE time draws near the birth of Christ:
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,

From far and near, on mead and moor,

Swell out and fail, as if a door

Were shut between me and the sound :

Each voice four changes on the wind,

That now dilate, and now decrease,
Peace and good-will, good-will and peace,

Peace and good-will, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wished no more to wake,
And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again :

But they my troubled spirit rule,

For they controlled me when a boy;

They bring me sorrow touched with joy, The merry, merry bells of Yule.

XXIX.

WITH Such compelling cause to grieve
As daily vexes household peace,
And chains regret to his decease,
How dare we keep our Christmas eve;

Which brings no more a welcome guest
To enrich the threshold of the night
With showered largess of delight,
In dance and song and game and jest.

Yet go, and while the holly-boughs

Entwine the cold baptismal font,

Make one wreath more for Use and Wont

That guard the portals of the house;

Old sisters of a day gone by,

Gray nurses, loving nothing new;

Why should they miss their yearly due Before their time? They too will die.

XXX.

WITH trembling fingers did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
A rainy cloud possessed the earth,
And sadly fell our Christmas eve.

At our old pastimes in the hall

We gambolled, making vain pretence Of gladness, with an awful sense Of one mute Shadow watching all.

We paused: the winds were in the beech: We heard them sweep the winter land; And in a circle hand in hand

Sat silent, looking each at each.

Then echo-like our voices rang;

We sung, though every eye was dim,
A merry song we sang with him

Last year impetuously we sang:

We ceased: a gentler feeling crept
Upon us surely rest is meet:

66

They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet,"

And silence followed, and we wept.

Our voices took a higher range;

Once more we sang: 66

They do not die

Nor lose their mortal sympathy,

Nor change to us, although they change;

'Rapt from the fickle and the frail,

With gathered power, yet the same, Pierces the keen seraphic flame From orb to orb, from veil to veil.

"Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,

Draw forth the cheerful day from night:

O Father! touch the east, and light

The light that shone when Hope was born."