by Coleridge · Cluster: Alienation · Outsider · Exile
Abstract
A brief lyric contrasting Christmas as joy for the home-blessed and gloom for the desolate who walks alone through life. Themes: loneliness, exile, memory, grief.
Connections
Motifs: Memory Themes & Concepts: Exile, Alienation, Melancholy Forms & Genres: Lyric Historical References: Christianity
Testo integrale / Full text
‘O! Christmas Day, Oh! happy day!
A foretaste from above,
To him who hath a happy home
And love returned from love!’
O! Christmas Day, O gloomy day, 5
The barb in Memory’s dart,
To him who walks alone through Life,
The desolate in heart.
1826.