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Alfred Lord Tennyson - In Memoriam XXX
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With trembling fingers did we weave
            The holly round the Christmas hearth;
            A rainy cloud possess`d the earth,
            and sadly fell on Christmas-eve.
             
            At our old pastimes in the hall
            We gamboll`s, 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 to 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, altho` 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.
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