Stanzas + 

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 passèd joy? + 

To know the change and feel it, + 

When there is none to heal it, + 

Nor numbèd sense to steal it, + 

Was never said in rhyme. + 