With such compelling cause to grieve As daily vexes household peace, And chains regret to his decease, How dare we keep our Christmas-eve;
Which brings no more a welcome guest To enrich the threshold of the night With shower'd largess of delight In dance and song and game and jest?
Yet go, and while the holly boughs Entwine the cold baptismal font, Make one wreath more for Use and Wont, That guard the portals of the house;
Old sisters of a day gone by, Gray nurses, loving nothing new; Why should they miss their yearly due Before their time? They too will die.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto XXIX