Before Dawn.

                                                DIM-BERRIED is the mistletoe
                                                With globes of sheenless grey,
                                                The holly mid ten thousand thorns
                                                Smolders its fires away;
                                                And in the manger Jesu sleeps
                                                This Christmas Day.
                                                Bull unto bull with hollow throat
                                                Makes echo every hill,
                                                Cold sheep in pastures thick with snow
                                                The air with bleatings fill;
                                                While of His Mother's heart this Babe
                                                Takes His sweet will.
                                                All flowers and butterflies lie hid,
                                                The blackbird and the thrush
                                                Pipe but a little as they flit
                                                Restless from bush to bush;
                                                Even to the robin Gabriel hath
                                                Cried softly, "Hush!"
                                                Now night is astir with burning stars
                                                In darkness of the snow;
                                                Burdened with frankincense and myrrh
                                                And gold the Strangers go
                                                Into a dusk where one dim lamp
                                                Burns faintly, Lo!
                                                No snowdrop yet its small head nods,
                                                In winds of winter drear;
                                                No lark at casement in the sky
                                                Sings matins shrill and clear;
                                                Yet in this frozen mirk the Dawn
                                                Breathes, Spring is here!
                                                                       -Walter de la Mer.