Too Cold to Cry - A Poem

“Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. 'Someone is dying,' thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God.”

—Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Match Girl

Too Cold to Cry

Beneath the church’s ringing bell,

Where in the darkness snowflakes fell,

Late stragglers passed hurrying by,

To shelter from the cold wind’s cry.

Behind the church a child stood;

She wore no gloves, no coat, no hood,

But wandered sad on swollen feet,

Down the lonely, quiet street.

“Matches, matches, matches for sale. . .”

Her shrill voice rose in howling gale,

And drifted up to black night sky,

Until it grew too cold to cry.

A bitter chill seeped to her bone;

She shivered in the dark alone.

Her fingers gripped matches unsold;

She clutched them tightly in the cold.

Then in the wintry dark she thought:

“Light these matches, I ought;

For it would make a cheerful sight,

To drive away the bitter night.”

Against a wall she went to sit,

And trembling now with hope she lit

A tiny flame, a flickering glow,

A star amid the flying snow.

But the night was angry at the flame,

And called the wind, the wind who came,

And with one icy, cruel bite,

Quenched the match’s dancing light.

Silent, sad, the child gazed

At the place where once the fire blazed.

She did not weep, her throat was dry;

In the alley it was too cold to cry.

She lit the rest, her fingers stiff;

And thought she caught the slightest whiff—

Of peppermint and cinnamon,

And cream and bread, and roasted hen.

The sound of music, laughter warm

Drowned the anger of the storm;

And hope, and love, and shining light

Pierced the dark and icy night.

She did not see the matches die;

She did not hear the cold wind’s cry.

She only felt a soft, warm heat;

Her spirit left her on the street.

In the dawn the pale sun rose,

To drive away the last night’s woes;

The church bell rang not far away,

To signal now a brand new day.

And a child was dead upon the street

Frozen stiff, from head to feet;

But her soul had gone, to some place high,

Away from this world, too cold to cry.