“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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Matin Song
byThomas Heywood (1575?-1650)

Pack, clouds, away! and welcome, day!
      With night we banish sorrow.
Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft
      To give my Love good-morrow!
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
      Notes from the lark I’ll borrow:
Bird, prune thy wing! nightingale, sing!
      To give my Love good-morrow!
            To give my Love good-morrow
            Notes from them all I’ll borrow.

Wake from thy nest, robin red-breast!
      Sing, birds, in every furrow!
And from each bill let music shrill
      Give my fair Love good-morrow!
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
      Stare, linnet, and cocksparrow,
You pretty elves, among yourselves
      Sing my fair Love good-morrow!
            To give my Love good-morrow!
            Sing, birds, in every furrow!

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Song (“When lovely woman stoops to folly”)
by Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)

When lovely woman stoops to folly,
      And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can sooth her melancholy,
      What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,
      To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
      And wring his bosom—is to die.

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An Autumn Reverie
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)

Through all the weary, hot midsummer time,
My heart has struggled with its awful grief.
And I have waited for these autumn days,
Thinking the cooling winds would bring relief.
For I remembered how I loved them once,
When all my life was full of melody.
And I have looked and longed for their return,
Nor thought but they would seem the same, to me.

The fiery summer burned itself away,
And from the hills, the golden autumn time
Looks down and smiles. The fields are tinged with brown—
The birds are talking of another clime.
The forest trees are dyed in gorgeous hues,
And weary ones have sought an earthy tomb.
But still the pain tugs fiercely at my heart—
And still my life is wrapped in awful gloom.

The winds I thought would cool my fevered brow,
Are bleak, and dreary; and they bear no balm.
The sounds I thought would soothe my throbbing brain,
Are grating discords; and they can not calm
This inward tempest. Still it rages on.
My soul is tost upon a troubled sea,
I find no pleasure in the olden joys—
The autumn is not as it used to be.

I hear the children shouting at their play!
Their hearts are happy, and they know not pain.
To them the day brings sunlight, and no shade.
And yet I would not be a child again.
For surely as the night succeeds the day,
So surely will their mirth turn into tears.
And I would not return to happy hours,
If I must live again these weary years.

I would walk on, and leave it all behind:
will walk on; and when my feet grow sore,
The boatman waits—his sails are all unfurled—
He waits to row me to a fairer shore.
My tired limbs shall rest on beds of down,
My tears shall all be wiped by Jesus’ hand;
My soul shall know the peace it long hath sought —
A peace too wonderful to understand.

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Dulce et Decorum Est
by Willfred Owen (1893-1918)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

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November
by William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air,
Ere, o’er the frozen earth, the loud winds ran,
Or snows are sifted o’er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue Gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skim the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

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Because I Could Not Stop For Death
by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed Us –
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –

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