Noël

Black is the sky, white is the land

—Bells, ring you all apace!

Jesus is born, the Virgin bends

Over him her charming face.

Naught of curtains all festooned

To keep the child from the cold;

Only the webs that spiders have loomed

Hanging from the roofbeams old.

He trembles on the new-lain straw,

That sweet little child, dear Jesus,

And from his crib the chill to thaw

The ass and ox each on him breathes.

The snow sews to the stubble its fringes,

But over the roof opens heaven’s well

And, all in white, the choir of angels

Sings to the shepherds: “Noël! Noël!”

Théophile Gautier