For this your mother sweated in the cold,
For this you bled upon the bitter tree:
A yard of tinsel ribbon bought and sold;
A paper wreath; a day at home for me.
The merry bells ring out, the people kneel;
Up goes the man of God before the crowd;
With voice of honey and with eyes of steel
He drones your humble gospel to the proud.
Nobody listens. Less than the wind that blows
Are all your words to us you died to save.
O Prince of Peace! O Sharon's dewy Rose!
How mute you lie within your vaulted grave.
This line sonically breaks an otherwise perfectly metered, sing-song sonnet. The iambic pentameter gives way to a far more somber sound when Millay introduces a dactylic foot (“Nobody”) followed by a trochee (“listens”). With this harsh accent and the caesura that follows Millay asserts her message about hypocrisy – and she stops to be sure  her reader  is listening.
To Jesus on His Birthday