Until the forward-creeping tides Began to foam, and we to draw From deep to deep, to where we saw A great ship lift her shining sides. The man we loved was there on deck, To greet us. Up the side I went, Whereat those maidens with one mind Bewail'd their lot; I did them wrong: We served thee here,' they said, 'so long, And wilt thou leave us now behind? So rapt I was, they could not win An answer from my lips, but he Replying, Enter likewise ye And go with us :' they enter'd in. And while the wind began to sweep A music out of sheet and shroud, We steer'd her toward a crimson cloud That landlike slept along the deep. CII. THE time draws near the birth of Christ; The moon is hid, the night is still; A single church below the hill Is pealing, folded in the mist. A single peal of bells below, That wakens at this hour of rest A single murmur in the breast, That these are not the bells I know. Like strangers' voices here they sound, In lands where not a memory strays, Nor landmark breathes of other days, But all is new unhallow'd ground. CIII. THIS holly by the cottage-eave, To night, ungather'd, shall it stand: We live within the stranger's land, And strangely falls our Christmas eve. Our father's dust is left alone And silent under other snows: There in due time the woodbine blows, The violet comes, but we are gone. No more shall wayward grief abuse The genial hour with mask and mime; For change of place, like growth of time, Has broke the bond of dying use. Let cares that petty shadows cast, By which our lives are chiefly proved, And hold it solemn to the past. But let no footstep beat the floor, Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm; For who would keep an ancient form Through which the spirit breathes no more? Be neither song, nor game, nor feast, Nor harp be touch 'd, nor flute be blown ; No dance, no motion, save alone What lightens in the lucid east Of rising worlds by yonder wood. Long sleeps the summer in the seed; Run out your measur'd arcs, and lead The closing cycle rich in good. M CIV. RING out wild bells to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow : The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife ; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. |