The dusk was upon hill and wood,
Upon the fields of soft new snow,
The pine-trees in God’s acre stood,
With branches laden, bending low,
And marble shaft and monument,
Like mystic, beings draped and pale,
Seemed listening to the bells that sent
Their Christmas greeting through the vale.
Around an open, little grave
There stood a group of weeping folk;
“The Lord hath taken what he gave,
We sorrow not as without hope,
For he who gave us Christmas eve
Said: ‘Let the children come to me,
Of such the kingdom is,’ they live,
With him in joy eternally.”
Thus spake the minister of God,
But still the parent’s heart did sob,
And when they heaped the frozen clod,
He felt that heav’n his hope did rob,
Congealing tears did cease to fall,
And thicker, denser grew the gloom,
The church-bell’s clang jarred on his soul,
He wished that grave for him had room.