Again at Christmas did we weave <br /> The holly round the Christmas hearth; <br /> The silent snow possess'd the earth, <br /> And calmly fell our Christmas-eve: <br /> <br /> The yule-log sparkled keen with frost, <br /> No wing of wind the region swept, <br /> But over all things brooding slept <br /> The quiet sense of something lost. <br /> <br /> As in the winters left behind, <br /> Again our ancient games had place, <br /> The mimic picture's breathing grace, <br /> And dance and song and hoodman-blind. <br /> <br /> Who show'd a token of distress? <br /> No single tear, no mark of pain: <br /> O sorrow, then can sorrow wane? <br /> O grief, can grief be changed to less? <br /> <br /> O last regret, regret can die! <br /> No--mixt with all this mystic frame, <br /> Her deep relations are the same, <br /> But with long use her tears are dry.<br /><br />Alfred Lord Tennyson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-memoriam-a-h-h-78-again-at-christmas-did-we-w/
