Stanzas: 'In a drear-nighted December'

In a drear-nighted December,

            Too happy, happy tree,

Thy branches ne'er remember

            Their green felicity:

      The north cannot undo them,

      With a sleety whistle through them;

      Nor frozen thawings glue them

                  From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,

            Too happy, happy brook,

Thy bubblings ne'er remember

            Apollo's summer look;

      But with a sweet forgetting,

      They stay their crystal fretting,

      Never, never petting

                  About the frozen time.

Ah! would 't were so with many

            A gentle girl and boy!

But were there ever any

            Writh'd not at passèd joy?

      To know the change and feel it,

      When there is none to heal it,

      Nor numbèd sense to steal it,

                  Was never said in rhyme.