Noel! Noel? I hear the bells in the night . . .
And I to these faithless sheets have put my pen:
O memories, sing! All my pride flees me,
And by my vast bitterness I am overcome.

Ah! these voices in the night singing Noel! Noel!
Bringing me from the nave which, out there, is lighted
A motherly reproach so tender, so sweet
That my heart, too full, breaks in my breast . . .

And I listen long to the bells in the night . . .
I am the pariah of the human family,
To whom in his squalid hole the wind
Brings poignant rumor of a far festivity.