There are tales to tell, there are tears to shed, 
     
    

    
     There are children’s flower-faces and women’s sweet 
     
     laughter; 
     
    

    
     There’s a chair left vacant for one who is dead 
     
     Where the firelight crimsons the ancient rafter; 
     
    

    
     What reck we of the world that waits 
     
    

    
     With care and clamor beyond our gates, 
     
    

    
     We, with our own, in this Witching light, 
     
    

    
     Who keep our tryst with the past to-night? 
     
    
   
   
    
     Ho! how the elf-flames laugh in glee! 
     
    

    
     Closer yet let us draw together, 
     
     Holding our revel of memory 
     
    

    
     In the guiling twilight of winter weather; 
     
     Out on the waste the wind is chill, 
     
     And the moon swings low o’er the western hill, 
     
     But old hates die and old loves burn higher 
     
     With the wane and flash of the farmhouse fire. 
     
    
   
   
    
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