Ours is the hemisphere of dark: the cold
Puts out the burning pyres alight
These hundred days of wretchedness untold;
This briefest day gives way to longest night.

How can I bid you celebrate the birth
Of one you think survived the cross and moved
To France, leaving his corpse beneath that earth,
Our cause of joy to you, at best, unproved?

Get gone, dear one, be blessed, betake your heat
That thawed an icebound spirit into life
To where the ocean and the summer sands will meet,
Earth, sea, air, fire dancing in gladsome strife.

I'll tend this flame in token of the sun
Against that day when all our lights are one.

©2001 FP Purcell