Christmas without Christ

Expressing his dejection at having to spend Christmas day without a religous service, English Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote this poem during a stay in Malta in 1832. It is included in Verses on Various Occasions :

Christmas without Christ

How can I keep my Christmas feast
In its due festive show,
Reft of the sight of the High Priest
From whom its glories flow?

I hear the tuneful bells around,
The blessèd towers I see;
A stranger on a foreign ground,
They peal a fast for me.

O Britons! now so brave and high,
How will ye weep the day
When Christ in judgment passes by,
And calls the Bride away!

Your Christmas then will lose its mirth,
Your Easter lose its bloom:
Abroad, a scene of strife and dearth;
Within, a cheerless home!

Malta.
December 25, 1832.