When you and I were young We would press our white faces from the car And the rain on the windows Would run through the gathering dark And the lampposts shone and dogs would run into the dying frame Where the park was glowing dimly through the silence of the lanes And the radiator's hum rose above the falling leaves Where, so fragile and so young, you had drifted into sleep I've been for a walk And every face I see seems to be mine Nighttime comes, the birds have flown A fever glows in every line I love this season, this weary night The flint, the dreams, the silent pines The eeriness is in the feeling That I have finished everything And a child from the school Was running back to her car And her white face cried She was deaf and afraid of the dark And the whispering house grew still as we stared into the night In the garden and the lamps and the window's fading light And though Christmas was the same, we had seen another year Turning softly through the flames