Poem by Dora Sigerson Shorter

At Christmas Time

For that old love I once adored
I decked my halls and spread my board
      At Christmas time.
With all the winter’s flowers that grow
I wreathed my room, and mistletoe
Hung in the gloom of my doorway,
Wherein my dear lost love might stray
      When joy-bells chime.

What phantom was it entered there
And drank his wine and took his chair
      At Christmas time?
With holly boughs and mistletoe
He crowned his head, and at my woe
And tears I shed laughed long and loud;
“Get back, O phantom! to thy shroud
      When joy-bells chime.”

1. The Fairy Changeling
2. A Bird from the West
3. A Vagrant Heart
4. For Ever
5. Sixteen Dead Men

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