To-night ungather'd let us leave <br /> This laurel, let this holly stand: <br /> We live within the stranger's land, <br /> And strangely falls our Christmas-eve. <br /> Our father's dust is left alone <br /> And silent under other snows: <br /> There in due time the woodbine blows, <br /> The violet comes, but we are gone. <br /> No more shall wayward grief abuse <br /> The genial hour with mask and mime; <br /> For change of place, like growth of time, <br /> Has broke the bond of dying use. <br /> <br /> Let cares that petty shadows cast, <br /> By which our lives are chiefly proved, <br /> A little spare the night I loved, <br /> And hold it solemn to the past. <br /> <br /> But let no footstep beat the floor, <br /> Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm; <br /> For who would keep an ancient form <br /> Thro' which the spirit breathes no more? <br /> <br /> Be neither song, nor game, nor feast; <br /> Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown; <br /> No dance, no motion, save alone <br /> What lightens in the lucid east <br /> <br /> Of rising worlds by yonder wood. <br /> Long sleeps the summer in the seed; <br /> Run out your measured arcs, and lead <br /> The closing cycle rich in good.<br /><br />Alfred Lord Tennyson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-memoriam-a-h-h-105-to-night-ungather-d-let-us/
