| We have tested and tasted too much, lover- | |
| Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder. | |
| But here in the Advent-darkened room | |
| Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea | |
| Of penance will charm back the luxury | 5 |
| Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom | |
| The knowledge we stole but could not use. | |
| | |
| And the newness that was in every stale thing | |
| When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking | |
| Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill | 10 |
| Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking | |
| Of an old fool will awake for us and bring | |
| You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins | |
| And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins. | |
| | |
| O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching | 15 |
| For the difference that sets an old phrase burning- | |
| We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning | |
| Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching. | |
| And we'll hear it among decent men too | |
| Who barrow dung in gardens under trees, | 20 |
| Wherever life pours ordinary plenty. | |
| Won't we be rich, my love and I, and | |
| God we shall not ask for reason's payment, | |
| The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges | |
| Nor analyse God's breath in common statement. | 25 |
| We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages | |
| Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour- | |
| And Christ comes with a January flower. | |
