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A Year’s Carols: 12 - December

Algernon Charles Swinburne

December, thou whose hallowing hands
On shuddering seas and hardening lands
Set as a sacramental sign
The seal of Christmas felt on earth
As witness toward a new year’s birth
Whose promise makes thy death divine;
The crowning joy that comes of thee
Makes glad all grief on land or sea.

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Swinburne’s Collected Poetical Works | William Heinemann, 1924

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