A DAY remorseful, heavy, dun, Had overcast the skies, As though the winter-vanquished sun Would never more arise. Brown trees drew out of blurred wet air A mockery of pearls, And tiny brooks seemed everywhere To speak in slakes and swirls. There was no hope within their home, There was not even bread: Within was gloom, without was gloom, And surely God seemed dead. Among the clenching mists they went, Along the lonely road, With nothing but their thoughts that meant More than a traveller's load -- By black ponds dull with dying sags, By heavy-hearted moors, By sheep-lanes trod to clogging quags, By uncouth farmyard stores. Ah, Christmas day all penniless, When these were brought so low! Yet now they feel from that dead stress A sullen pleasure grow; Most like the yew all stern and dark That grows in churchyard ground: The sexton has some pride to mark Its shadow and its sound. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO A CAPTIOUS CRITIC by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR MOZART'S REQUIEM by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS THE CITY MOUSE AND THE COUNTRY [OR, GARDEN] MOUSE by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI TO EDWARD FITZGERALD by ALFRED TENNYSON |