Poems By Richard Chenevix Trench: New ed |
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[If our high debt of holy glee] |
 | Poems |  |
236
[If our high debt of holy glee]
Christmas, 1841.
If our high debt of holy glee
This day we have not fully paid,
If other thoughts have dared invade
The time, yet pardoned this shall be:
This day we have not fully paid,
If other thoughts have dared invade
The time, yet pardoned this shall be:
For these, how should they not have flung
Some shadow on this day perforce,
When alway through its solemn course
One presence has about us hung?
Some shadow on this day perforce,
When alway through its solemn course
One presence has about us hung?
Even his, who with us still abode,
When last our yule-fires burned, although
Even then already girt to go,
Young pilgrim for so rough a road?
When last our yule-fires burned, although
Even then already girt to go,
Young pilgrim for so rough a road?
The image of his pale meek face,
As he, though full of silent pain,
Among the household band was fain
This festal eve to keep his place:
As he, though full of silent pain,
Among the household band was fain
This festal eve to keep his place:
In weakness and in pain he lay,
In heavier pain than then we knew,
While yet the coming anguish threw
No shadow on our forward way.
In heavier pain than then we knew,
While yet the coming anguish threw
No shadow on our forward way.
237
Near was it, yet we little deemed
One step would bring us into gloom,
Another set us by a tomb,
But all secure and constant seemed.
One step would bring us into gloom,
Another set us by a tomb,
But all secure and constant seemed.
Now, living o'er that time anew,
Sad are we—yet, I would believe,
Not thus unfitted to receive
Our share in this day's blessings true:
Sad are we—yet, I would believe,
Not thus unfitted to receive
Our share in this day's blessings true:
For He who once, a Heavenly Child,
Came to a world not clad in bright
Spring-blossoms, nor in gay leaves dight,
But to its winter bleak and wild,
Came to a world not clad in bright
Spring-blossoms, nor in gay leaves dight,
But to its winter bleak and wild,
To faithful hearts comes evermore,
When Grief has touched with finger sere
The splendours of life's earlier year,
As never He had come before.
When Grief has touched with finger sere
The splendours of life's earlier year,
As never He had come before.
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