XXVI.

STILL onward winds the dreary way;
I with it; for I long to prove

No lapse of moons can canker Love, Whatever fickle tongues may say.

And if that eye which watches guilt

And goodness, and hath power to see Within the green the moulder'd tree, And towers fall'n as soon as built

Oh, if indeed that eye foresee

Or see (in Him is no before)
In more of life true life no more,

And Love the indifference to be,

So might I find, ere yet the morn

Breaks hither over Indian seas,

That Shadow waiting with the keys,

To cloak me from my proper scorn.

XXVII.

I ENVY not in any moods

The captive void of noble rage,

The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes

His license in the field of time,

Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,

To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,

The heart that never plighted troth

But stagnates in the weeds of sloth, Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

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 goodwill, goodwill and peace,

Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,

I almost wish'd 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 controll'd me when a boy;

They bring me sorrow touch'd 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 shower'd 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.