Canto LXXVI
Again at Christmas did we weaveThe holly round the Christmas hearth,The silent snow possess’d the earth,And calmly fell our Christmas-eve;
The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost,No wing of wind the region swept,But over all things brooding sleptThe quiet sense of something lost.
As in the winters left behind,Again our ancient games had place,The mimic pictures breathing grace,And dance and song and hoodman-blind.
Who show’d a token of distress?No single tear, no type of pain:O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?O grief, can grief be changed to less?
O last regret, Regret can die!No—mixt with all this mystic frame,Her deep relations are the same,But with long use her tears are dry.