Ernest Rhys

THE WINTER seal is on the door.

Three women sit beside the fire

Silent, and watch their shadows sprawl

Like sombre wolfhounds on the floor.

One “Christus,” nailed upon the wall,

Pities the young wife great with child,

Whose mate lies drowned beneath the sea.

She cannot tell how to bear it all,

Or live till Noel sets her free,

When she need not fear the quick and dead,

That every nightfall step the stair,

Awaiting the Nativity.

Now she will rise in her despair

To look out through the leaden panes

Between the wall-bed and the hearth;

And hear the wind like sea-waves there.

She does not know how, in the earth,

The dark blind seed doth hear the wind,

And think of death, and dream of birth,

As the window sends the firelight forth.