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,
But thrice as large as man he bent

To greet us. Up the side I went,
And fell in silence on his neck :

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,
A little spare the night I loved,

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.