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In a drear-nighted December

    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
        Writhed not at passed Joy?
    To know the change and feel it,
    When there is none to heal it,
    Nor numbed sense to steel it,
             Was never said in rhyme. 

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