Classic Poem

The hastening years fall slow
And we too pause.
Anxious the years, because
An end makes dead,
But calmer we, we know
That all the private years remain unsped.

Die with the public years,
O monster joy!
That by the Christian toy
And deathless tree
Hath chased thy human tears
Like drops of time and too repeatedly.

Be pale, thou annual ghost!
Whose Christmas heir
We are, in hiding care
From death's shrewd eye.
Ours is a longer boast —
We frolic less, not fearing soon to die.

Against the Mass of Christ —
When bleats the world
In manger-family curled —
We dedicate
This more coherent tryst,
Not altogether heedless of the date.