In a drear-nighted December,
  Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne’er remember
  Their green felicity;
The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
  From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
  Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
  Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
  About the frozen time.

Ah! would ‘twere so with many
  A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
  Writh’d not at passing joy?
The feel of not to feel it,
Where there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
  Was never said in rhyme.