Lyric Poem · Sad
In Memoriam 78: Again at Christmas did we weave
Again at Christmas did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
The silent snow possess'd the earth,
And calmly fell our Christmas-eve:
The yule-log sparkled keen with frost,
No wing of wind the region swept,
But over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost.
As in the winters left behind,
Again our ancient games had place,
The mimic picture's breathing grace,
And dance and song and hoodman-blind.
Who show'd a token of distress?
No single tear, no mark of pain:
O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?
O grief, can grief be changed to less?
O last regret, regret can die!
No — mixt with all this mystic frame,
Her deep relations are the same,
But with long use her tears are dry.
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“In Memoriam 78: Again at Christmas did we weave” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson — quilloak.com/poems/in-memoriam-78-again-at-christmas-did-we-weave
Quick facts
- Poem
- In Memoriam 78: Again at Christmas did we weave
- Poet
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Length
- 20 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Sad, Nature, Winter
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 20 lines · 5 quatrains
- Line length
- Consistent with long metre. Four eight-syllable lines (8.8.8.8), the hymn stanza's longer cousin.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson1809–1892
- Source record
- PoetryDBIn Memoriam 78: Again at Christmas did we weave by alfred-lord-tennyson, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 4c26280f2e31a78a…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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