Ignorance is not bliss; to have known Love is

blessedness.

XXVII.

1. I envy not in any moods

The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods:

2. I envy not the beast that takes

His license in the field of time, Unfetter'd by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes;

3. Nor, what may count itself as blest,

The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; Nor any want-begotten rest.

4. I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most: 'T is better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

CYCLE II. DOUBTS AND WISTFUL YEARNINGS

SECTION IV. CHRISTMAS-TIDE, AND THE QUESTIONINGS IT SUGGESTS CONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE:

A sad
Christmas-tide

MOODS OF PERPLEXITY AND DOUBT

XXVIII.

1. The time draws near the birth of Christ:
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

2. Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
Swell out and fail, as if a door

Were shut between me and the sound:

3. Each voice four changes on the wind, That now dilate, and now decrease, Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,

Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

4. This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wish'd no more to wake,

And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

5. But they my troubled spirit rule,

For they controll'd me when a boy;
They bring me sorrow touch'd with

He is in sympathy with the Christmas festivities since they, too, do not love change and death.

XXIX.

1. With such compelling cause to grieve
As daily vexes household peace,
And chains regret to his decease,
How dare we keep our Christmas-eve;

2.

Which brings no more a welcome guest

To enrich the threshold of the night
With shower'd largess of delight
In dance and song and game and jest?

3. Yet go, and while the holly boughs
Entwine the cold baptismal font,

Make one wreath more for Use and
Wont,

That guard the portals of the house;

4. Old sisters of a day gone by,

Gray nurses, loving nothing new;

Why should they miss their yearly due Before their time? They too will die.

XXX.

The day, sad 1. With trembling fingers did we weave

as it is, sug

gests the glad thought of immortality.

The holly round the Christmas hearth;
A rainy cloud possess'd the earth,

And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.

2. At our old pastimes in the hall.

We gamboll'd, making vain pretence
Of gladness, with an awful sense
Of one mute Shadow watching all.

3. 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.