To-night ungather'd let us leave 
 This laurel, let this holly stand:
 We live within the stranger's land,
 And strangely falls our Christmas-eve.
 Our father's dust is left alone
 And silent under other snows:
 There in due time the woodbine blows,
 The violet comes, but we are gone.
 No more shall wayward grief abuse
 The genial hour with mask and mime;
 For change of place, like growth of time,
 Has broke the bond of dying use.

 Let cares that petty shadows cast,
 By which our lives are chiefly proved,
 A little spare the night I loved,
 And hold it solemn to the past.

 But let no footstep beat the floor,
 Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;
 For who would keep an ancient form
 Thro' which the spirit breathes no more?

 Be neither song, nor game, nor feast;
 Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown;
 No dance, no motion, save alone
 What lightens in the lucid east

 Of rising worlds by yonder wood.
 Long sleeps the summer in the seed;
 Run out your measured arcs, and lead
 The closing cycle rich in good.