Lyric Poem · Sad

In Memoriam 78: Again at Christmas did we weave

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Reading room

1Again at Christmas did we weave

2The holly round the Christmas hearth;

3The silent snow possess'd the earth,

4And calmly fell our Christmas-eve:

5The yule-log sparkled keen with frost,

6No wing of wind the region swept,

7But over all things brooding slept

8The quiet sense of something lost.

9As in the winters left behind,

10Again our ancient games had place,

11The mimic picture's breathing grace,

12And dance and song and hoodman-blind.

13Who show'd a token of distress?

14No single tear, no mark of pain:

15O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?

16O grief, can grief be changed to less?

17O last regret, regret can die!

18No — mixt with all this mystic frame,

19Her deep relations are the same,

20But 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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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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Lyric Poem Sad Nature Winter

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