Canto XXX
With trembling fingers did we weaveThe holly round the Christmas hearth;A rainy cloud possess’d the earth,And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.
At our old pastimes in the hallWe gambol’d, making vain pretenceOf gladness, with an awful senseOf 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-handSat silent, looking each at each.
Then echo-like our voices rang;We sung, tho’ every eye was dim,A merry song we sang with himLast year: impetuously we sang:
We ceased: a gentler feeling creptUpon 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 dieNor lose their mortal sympathy,Nor change to us, although they change;
Rapt from the fickle and the frailWith gather’d power, yet the same,Pierces the keen seraphic flameFrom 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 lightThe light that shone when Hope was born.’