The Almond Branch

The Almond Branch

(Cache-Fiò)

I

“Come answer me this, petite, petite—A riddle for you to guess, my sweet:What is the tree that in winter’s gloomBreaks in an hour into bloom, into bloom?Here’s silver for her who tells”(Hark to the nougat bells!)[2]

“Come answer me this, petite, petite—A riddle for you to guess, my sweet:What is the tree that in winter’s gloomBreaks in an hour into bloom, into bloom?Here’s silver for her who tells”(Hark to the nougat bells!)[2]

“Come answer me this, petite, petite—A riddle for you to guess, my sweet:What is the tree that in winter’s gloomBreaks in an hour into bloom, into bloom?Here’s silver for her who tells”(Hark to the nougat bells!)[2]

“Come answer me this, petite, petite—

A riddle for you to guess, my sweet:

What is the tree that in winter’s gloom

Breaks in an hour into bloom, into bloom?

Here’s silver for her who tells”

(Hark to the nougat bells!)[2]

II

“Mon vieux, mon vieux, that’s no riddle for me’Tis a branch of the little almond treeThe poor man brings from the orchard-plot;A branch for a yule-log—is all he has got,While his children singnoëls”(Hark to the nougat bells!)

“Mon vieux, mon vieux, that’s no riddle for me’Tis a branch of the little almond treeThe poor man brings from the orchard-plot;A branch for a yule-log—is all he has got,While his children singnoëls”(Hark to the nougat bells!)

“Mon vieux, mon vieux, that’s no riddle for me’Tis a branch of the little almond treeThe poor man brings from the orchard-plot;A branch for a yule-log—is all he has got,While his children singnoëls”(Hark to the nougat bells!)

“Mon vieux, mon vieux, that’s no riddle for me

’Tis a branch of the little almond tree

The poor man brings from the orchard-plot;

A branch for a yule-log—is all he has got,

While his children singnoëls”

(Hark to the nougat bells!)

III

“But it snaps in the fire and the whole branch glows—Breaks into blossoms of white and rose!His wife and his children laugh to seeThose blossoms of fire from the almond tree—And the smoke how sweet it smells!”(Hark to the nougat bells!)

“But it snaps in the fire and the whole branch glows—Breaks into blossoms of white and rose!His wife and his children laugh to seeThose blossoms of fire from the almond tree—And the smoke how sweet it smells!”(Hark to the nougat bells!)

“But it snaps in the fire and the whole branch glows—Breaks into blossoms of white and rose!His wife and his children laugh to seeThose blossoms of fire from the almond tree—And the smoke how sweet it smells!”(Hark to the nougat bells!)

“But it snaps in the fire and the whole branch glows—

Breaks into blossoms of white and rose!

His wife and his children laugh to see

Those blossoms of fire from the almond tree—

And the smoke how sweet it smells!”

(Hark to the nougat bells!)

Edith M. Thomas

[2]The Christmas chimes, so called from the confection of that season.

[2]The Christmas chimes, so called from the confection of that season.

[2]The Christmas chimes, so called from the confection of that season.

The Almond BranchOriginal page⇒LARGER IMAGE

Original page

⇒LARGER IMAGE


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