Dim-berried is the mistletoe With globes of sheenless grey, The holly mid ten thousand thorns Smoulders its fires away; And in the manger Jesu sleeps This Christmas Day. Bull unto bull with hollow throat Makes echo every hill, Cold sheep in pastures thick with snow The air with bleatings fill; While of his mother's heart this Babe Takes His sweet will. All flowers and butterflies lie hid, The blackbird and the thrush Pipe but a little as they flit Restless from bush to bush; Even to the robin Gabriel hath Cried softly, 'Hush!' Now night's astir with burning stars In darkness of the snow; Burdened with frankincense and myrrh And gold the Strangers go Into a dusk where one dim lamp Burns faintly, Lo! No snowdrop yet its small head nods, In winds of winter drear; No lark at casement in the sky Sings matins shrill and clear; Yet in this frozen mirk the Dawn Breathes, Spring is here! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO NATURE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 26. ASKING FOR HER HEART. CHRISTMAS by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE COMING by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE LOVE'S WAYFARING by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE A PRETTY WOMAN by ROBERT BROWNING TO THE QUEENES MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE by ELIZABETH (TANFIELD) CARY AFTER A MOTHER'S DEATH by ELIZA COOK POSTHUMOUS TALES: TALE 8. BARNABY; THE SHOPMAN by GEORGE CRABBE |