Classic Poem

While Albion's woods, close-knotted, darkly spread
About the Isle and fringed her virgin breast;
While from the mystic arches of the West
The prophet Sea upreared his awful head,

And gazed upon her groves; with hoary hands
Shook her tall, lonely rocks, and loud did peal
Long thunders at her shores; nor could unseal
The secret to her ears, nor on her strands.

Write with soft touches and with sapphire style
The hidden things; nor with faint silver pipe
Breathe it to her deep woods when acorns ripe
Hung brown in soft, still hazes; nor the while.

The mistletoe peered from the huge-maned oak—
The dark, loud lion of all trees—when high
Spring like a dove sailed low athwart the sky;
Nor while fierce summer thro' the copses broke,

A warrior, with the juice of flowers stained;
So with weird voices inarticulate,
And wordless thunders rounded with far fate,
The speechless Ocean mourned and sore complained.

Burthened with knowledge of the Titan, laid
By the dim arches of the mystic West,
And mourning still—a prophet most unblest—
Loud were the long laments the old seer made.

And nacreous-breasted, lone Albion stood,
And felt his urgent hands and with blank eyes
Gazed on his throes, nor plucked from his great cries
The secret of the one beyond his flood,

Nor hands pre-sensed yet, clasping close and vast
Across the loud, bright waste, nor heard thro' calms
Locked whispers from stern pines and supple palms,
Nor saw strange sails against her lone breast cast.

What time fierce Winter, like a wolf all lean,
With sharp, white fangs bit at weak woodland things,
Pierced furry breasts, and broke small painted wings,
And from dim homes all interlocked and green.

Drove little spirits—those who love glossed leaves
And glimmer in tall grasses—those who ride
Glossed bubbles on the woodland's sheltered tide,
And make blue hyacinths their household eaves—

Then, moved with ruth of these small houseless sprites,
The white-robed Druids led the people on
To where the mistletoe all whitely shone
On the dark sacred oaks—stars in dim nights;

And chanting high, with golden sickles cut
The kindly bough, and o'er the sharp-tipped snow
And sere, bleak fields brought back the mistletoe,
And hung the starry branch in hall and hut.

Then to its shelter hurried airy throngs
Of elves unhoused, and dwelt with kindly men,
Till burned the heart of spring, and hill and glen
Throbbed to sweet bloom, and brooks and birds to songs.

Thus, from the first, faint Christ-lights lit the earth,
As mistletoe shone on the dusky oak;
Sweet Pity, star-like, in dark ages broke
And lent its flame divine to Yuletide mirth.

Ye lordly homes that with the Yuletide glow,
And small, bright homes that spangle free, broad shores,
Hang the white branch of Yule o'er wide-flung doors,
With Pity's bough—the strong soul's mistletoe.