With old familiar sign,
1
Ruddies the snow-clogged way;
Butchers and toy-shops flame,—
4
Because the Lord Christ came
Without 'tis merry, snowing,
7
Within the wine is flowing,
And men and maids are jolly,
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With mistletoe and holly—
Because the Lord Christ gave
Himself our souls to save.
Yet, underneath the singing,
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The fiddling and the flinging,
Stalks like a guest unbidden,
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Steals like a secret hidden,
Upon the heart of mirth
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That laughs for Jesu's birth-
With mistletoe and holly!)
From an old book I read,
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Of a grim castle-hold,
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And ladies clad in vair,
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And a great feasting there,
Torches and swords in air:
Then, in some lull of mirth,
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From far beneath the earth,
The wind was it? wailing—
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It held the feasters fast:
So might the lost in hell
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Pierce, for a little spell,
With uncouth cries. . . .
Once more the feasters laughed,
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Cozened their feres and quaffed,—
'Twas but the knaves that lay,
Far from the light of day,
Beneath their dancing feet,
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Chained down with rats and slime,
Lost out of space and time—
(Souls not worth saving!)
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So kept they Lord Christ's day,
What was my thought, though?
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Hearken the whispering snow
Lord Christ! the wind doth blow
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Nimbler, O dancers, glide. . . .
Nay! music cease to play,
61
Nay 'tis the folk that lie
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The men that starve and die
Far from the light there;
From oubliettes of pain,
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From wheel and rack and chain,
Beneath your dancing feet,
Tripping so fleet, so sweet,
From folk that rave and rot,
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Comes the wild wind's refrain,
Long as the wind shall blow,
Long as the snow shall snow. . . .
(But merry is the street,
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And a Merry Christmas, gentles all!)