| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | I. Solitary at Christmas, but Not Sad | | By Alexander Smith (1830–1867) |
| | | JOY like a stream flows through the Christmas streets, | |
| But I am sitting in my silent room, | |
| Sitting all silent in congenial gloom;— | |
| To-night, while half the world the other greets | |
| With smiles and grasping hands, and drinks and meats, | 5 |
| I sit, and muse on my poetic doom. | |
| Like the dim scent within a budded rose, | |
| A joy is folded in my heart; and when | |
| I think on Poets nurtured ’mong the throes, | |
| And by the lowly hearths of common men,— | 10 |
| Think of their works, some song, some swelling ode | |
| With gorgeous music growing to a close, | |
| Deep-muffled as the dead-march of a god,— | |
| My heart is burning to be one of those. | | | | |
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