Before Dawn

Dim-berried is the mistletoe
With globes of sheenless gray
The holly, 'mid ten thousand thorns
Smoulders its fires away
And in the manger Jesu sleeps
This Christmas day
Bull unto bull with hollow throat
Make echo every hill
Cold sheep in pastures thick with snow
The air with bleatings fill
While of his Mother's heart this Babe
Takes his sweet will
All flowers and butterflies lie hid
The blackbird and the thrush
Pipe but a little as they flit
Restless from bush to bush
Even to the robin Gabriel
Hath cried softly, "Hush!"
Now night's astir with burning stars
In darkness of the snow
Burdened with frankincense and myrrh
And gold, the strangers go
Into a dusk where one dim lamp
Burns faintly, lo!
No snowdrop yet its small head nods
In winds of winter drear
No lark at casement in the sky
Sings matins shrill and clear
Yet in this frozen mirk the dawn
Breathes, "Spring is here."