Forest Notes :: :: University of Virginia Library

All round us there is holly; and the light
Makes its leaves glitter with metallic sheen
Hard, prickly, bright.
The clustered berries, small as yet and green,
Are ripening slowly for the Christmas days,
And scarcely seen.
Ay, ripen, holly, in the August rays:
The mistletoe, thy partner, ripens fast
On distant ways;
The children in a thousand homes will cast
Their wistful eyes upon thee: grow for them,
Who have no Past.
For, many a Christmas guest whom cares condemn

To sit apart, and scan with eyes that brood
Thy prickly stem,
Sees in thy crimson berries drops of blood,
And in the mistletoe's the frozen tears
Of life's lost good.
But oh the children know no bygone years,
No grief to come: so, holly, grow apace
Till Christmas nears.
And they shall crowd about the high wreath'd base
Of each betinselled dazzling Christmas fir,
With wondering face,
While resinous scents from bough and taper stir
Awed visions round that pyramid of light
Like holiest myrrh.
The quivering wreath of flame, pale-blue and bright,
Shall round the pride of Christmas flicker up

On Christmas night;
And still the carol sound, the wassail cup
Be filled, and with his holly diadem
King Christmas sup;
So, holly, ripen on thy prickly stem
And fill thy clusters which the dews now wet,
With glowing crimson on the forest's hem:
We need thee yet.