When, in the dark, the frost cracks on the window

The children awaken, and whisper.

One says the moonlight grated like a skate

Across the freezing river.

Another hears the starlight breaking like a knifeblade

Upon the silent, steelbright pond.

They say the trees are stiller than the frozen water

From waiting for a shouting light, a heavenly message.

Yet it is far from Christmas, when a star

Sang in the pane, as brittle as their innocence!

For now the light of early Lent Glitters upon the icy step—

“We have wept letters to our patron saints,

(The children say) yet slept before they ended.”

Oh, is there in this night no sound of strings, of singers?

None coming from the wedding, no, nor Bridegroom’s messenger?

(The sleepy virgins stir, and trim their lamps.)

The moonlight rings upon the ice as sudden as a footstep;

Starlight clinks upon the dooryard stone, too like a latch,

And the children are, again, awake,

And all call out in whispers to their guardian angels.