Canto XXX

With trembling fingers did we weave

      The holly round the Christmas hearth;

      A rainy cloud possess'd the earth,

And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.

At our old pastimes in the hall

      We gambol'd, 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, tho' 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:

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

And silence follow'd, and we wept.

Our voices took a higher range;

      Once more we sang: 'They do not die

      Nor lose their mortal sympathy,

Nor change to us, although they change;

Rapt from the fickle and the frail

      With gather'd 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.'