---

There is snow on the ground,

And the valleys are cold,

And a midnight profound

Blackly squats o'er the wold;

But a light on the hilltops half-seen

hints of feastings un-hallowed and old.

There is death in the clouds,

There is fear in the night,

For the dead in their shrouds

Hail the sin's turning flight.

And chant wild in the woods as they dance

round a Yule- altar fungous and white.

To no gale of Earth's kind

Sways the forest of oak,

Where the sick boughs entwined

By mad mistletoes choke,

For these pow'rs are the pow'rs of the dark, from the graves of the lost Druid-folk.