XXVIII.

HE 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.

ITH 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.

XXX.

ITH 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:

XXIX.

ITH 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.