In Memoriam XXX

With trembling fingers did we weave
  The holly round the Christmas hearth;
  A rainy cloud possess'd the earth,
  and sadly fell on Christmas-eve.
 
  At our old pastimes in the hall
  We gamboll's, making vain pretence
  Of gladness, with an awful sense
  Of one mute Shadow watching all.
 
  We paused: the winds were in the beech:
  We heard them sweep the winter land;
  And in a circle hand-in-hand
  Sat silent, looking each at each.
 
  Then echo-like our voices rang;
  We sung, tho' every eye was dim,
  A merry song we sang to him
  Last year; impetuously we sang.
 
  We ceased; a gentler feeling crept
  Upon us: surely rest is meet.
  'They rest,' we said, 'their sleep is sweet,'
  And silence follow'd, and we wept.
 
  Our voices took a higher range;
  Once more we sang: 'They do not die
  Nor lose their mortal sympathy,
  Nor change to us, altho' they change;
 
  'Rapt from the fickle and the frail
  With gather'd power, yet the same,
  Pierces the keen seraphic flame
  From orb to orb, from veil to veil.'
 
  Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,
  Draw forth the cheerful day from night:
  O Father, touch the east, and light
  The light that shone when Hope was born.