This is the day His hour of life draws near, <br />Let me get ready from head to foot for it <br />Most handily with eyes to pick the year <br />For small feed to reward a feathered wit. <br />Some men would see it an epiphany <br />At ease, at food and drink, others at chase <br />Yet I, stung lassitude, with ecstasy <br />Unspent argue the season's difficult case <br />So: Man, dull critter of enormous head, <br />What would he look at in the coiling sky? <br />But I must kneel again unto the Dead <br />While Christmas bells of paper white and red, <br />Figured with boys and girls spilt from a sled, <br />Ring out the silence I am nourished by.<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnets-at-christmas-i/
