Canto CIII

This holly by the cottage-eave,

      To night, ungather'd, shall it stand:

      We live within the stranger's land,

And strangely falls our Christmas eve.

Our father's dust is left alone

      And silent under other snows:

      There in due time the woodbine blows,

The violet comes, but we are gone.

No more shall wayward grief abuse

      The genial hour with mask and mime;

      For change of place, like growth of time,

Has broke the bond of dying use.

Let cares that petty shadows cast,

      By which our lives are chiefly proved,

      A little spare the night I loved,

And hold it solemn to the past.

But let no footstep beat the floor,

      Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;

      For who would keep an ancient form

Through which the spirit breathes no more?

Be neither song, nor game, nor feast,

      Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown;

      No dance, no motion, save alone

What lightens in the lucid east

Of rising worlds by yonder wood.

      Long sleeps the summer in the seed;

      Ran out your measur'd arcs, and lead

The closing cycle rich in good.