The night before Christmas
I cried with cold
I cried myself to sleep
Like a two-year old

And in the deep night
I felt my mother rise
And stare down upon me
With love in her eyes

I saw my mother sitting
On the one good chair
A light falling on her
From I couldn't tell where

Looking nineteen
And not a day older
And the harp with a woman's head
Leaned against her shoulder

Her thin fingers, moving
In the thin, tall strings
Were weav-weav-weaving
Wonderful things

Many bright thrеads
From where I couldn't see
Werе running through the harp-strings
Rapidly
And gold threads whistling
Through my mother's hand
I saw the web grow
And the pattern expand

She wove a child's jacket
And when it was done
She laid it on the floor
And wove another one

She wove a red cloak
So regal to see
"She's made it for a king's son,"
I said, "and not for me."
But I knew it was for me

She wove a pair of breeches
Quicker than that!
She wove a pair of boots
And a little cocked hat

She wove a pair of mittens
Shw wove a little blouse
She wove all night
In the still, cold house
She sang as she worked
And the harp-strings spoke;
Her voice never faltered
And the thread never broke
And when I awoke, --

There sat my mother
With the harp against her shoulder
Looking nineteeen
And not a day older

A smile about her lips
And a light about her head
And her hands in the harp-strings
Frozen dead

And piled beside her
And toppling to the skies
Were the clothes of a king's son
Just my size