“The time draws near the birth of Christ”
Section XXVIII of In Memoriam
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
      The moon is hid; the night is still;
      The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
      From far and near, on mead and moor,
      Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,
      That now dilate, and now decrease,
      Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
      I almost wish’d no more to wake,
      And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
      For they controll’d me when a boy;
      They bring me sorrow touch’d with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.

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A Dream of Summer
by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

Bland as the morning breath of June
      The southwest breezes play;
And, through its haze, the winter noon
      Seems warm as summer’s day.
The snow-plumed Angel of the North
      Has dropped his icy spear;
Again the mossy earth looks forth,
      Again the streams gush clear.

The fox his hillside cell forsakes,
      The muskrat leaves his nook,
The bluebird in the meadow brakes
      Is singing with the brook.
“Bear up, O Mother Nature!” cry
      Bird, breeze, and streamlet free;
“Our winter voices prophesy
      Of summer days to thee!”

So, in those winters of the soul,
      By bitter blasts and drear
O’erswept from Memory’s frozen pole,
      Will sunny days appear.
Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
      The soul its living powers,
And how beneath the winter’s snow
      Lie germs of summer flowers!

The Night is mother of the Day,
      The Winter of the Spring,
And ever upon old Decay
      The greenest mosses cling.
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
      Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God, who loveth all His works,
      Has left His hope with all!

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The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna
by Charles Wolfe (1791-1823)

Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note,
      As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
      O’er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
      The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light
      And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
      Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
      With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
      And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
      And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed
      And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,
      And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone
      And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him,–
But little he’ll reck, if they let him sleep on
      In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done
      When the clock struck the hour for retiring:
And we heard the distant and random gun
      That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
      From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
      But left him alone with his glory.

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The Policeman’s Lot
by William Schwenck Gilbert(1836-1911)

When a felon’s not engaged in his employment,
      Or maturing his felonious little plans,
His capacity for innocent enjoyment
      Is just as great as any honest man’s.
Our feelings we with difficulty smother
      When constabulary duty’s to be done:
Ah, take one consideration with another,
      A policeman’s lot is not a happy one

When the enterprising burglar isn’t burgling,
      When the cut-throat isn’t occupied in crime,
He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling,
      And listen to the merry village chime.
When the coster’s finished jumping on his mother,
      He loves to lie a-basking in the sun:
Ah, take one consideration with another,
      The policeman’s lot is not a happy one!

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