Whereat those maidens with one mind

Bewail'd their lot; I did them wrong:

"We served thee here," they said, "so long, And wilt thou leave us now behind ?"

So rapt I was, they could not win

An answer from my lips, but he
Replying, "Enter likewise ye

And go with us:" they enter'd in.

And while the wind began to sweep

A music out of sheet and shroud,

We steer'd her toward a crimson cloud

That landlike slept along the deep.

CIV.

HE time draws near the birth of Christ;
The moon is hid, the night is still;

A single church below the hill

Is pealing, folded in the mist.

A single peal of bells below,

That wakens at this hour of rest A single murmur in the breast, That these are not the bells I know.

Like strangers' voices here they sound,

In lands where not a memory strays,
Nor landmark breathes of other days,

But all is new unhallow'd ground.

CV.

O-NIGHT ungather'd let us leave
This laurel, let this holly 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 Thro' 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;

Run out your measured arcs, and lead

The closing cycle rich in good.

CVI.

ING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.