Obiit MDCCCXXXIII, XXIII–XXX

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, Or breaking into song by fits; Alone, alone, to where he sits, The Shadow cloak’d from head to foot

Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, I wander, often falling lame, And looking back to whence I came, Or on to where the pathway leads;

And crying, how changed from where it ran Thro’ lands where not a leaf was dumb; But all the lavish hills would hum The murmur of a happy Pan:

When each by turns was guide to each, And Fancy light from Fancy caught, And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought, Ere thought could wed itself with Speech:

And all we met was fair and good, And all was good that Time could bring, And all the secret of the Spring Moved in the chambers of the blood:

And many an old philosophy On Argive heights divinely sang, And round us all the thicket rang To many a flute of Arcady.

And was the day of my delight As pure and perfect as I say? The very source and fount of Day Is dash’d with wandering isles of night.

If all was good and fair we met, This earth had been the Paradise It never look’d to human eyes Since Adam left his garden yet.

And is it that the haze of grief Hath stretch’d my former joy so great? The lowness of the present state, That sets the past in this relief?

Or that the past will always win A glory from its being far; And orb into the perfect star We saw not, when we moved therein?

I know that this was Life,—the track Whereon with equal feet we fared; And then, as now, the day prepared The daily burden for the back.

But this it was that made me move As light as carrier-birds in air; I loved the weight I had to bear, Because it needed help of Love:

Nor could I weary, heart or limb, When mighty Love would cleave in twain The lading of a single pain, And part it, giving half to him.

Still onward winds the dreary way; I with it; for I long to prove No lapse of moons can canker Love, Whatever fickle tongues may say.

And if that eye which watches guilt And goodness, and hath power to see Within the green the moulder’d tree, And towers fall’n as soon as built—

Oh, if indeed that eye foresee Or see (in Him is no before) In more of life true life no more, And Love the indifference to be,

So might I find, ere yet the morn Breaks hither over Indian seas, That Shadow waiting with the keys, To cloak me from my proper scorn.

I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time, Unfetter’d by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth, Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; ’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

The 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.

With 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.

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.’