AT CHRISTMAS TIME

By Dora Sigerson Shorter

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.”