Hither and thither
The wind and three
Starving sheep.
Redwings from Norway rattle at the clouds
But comfortless sneezers puddle in pubs.
The robin looks in at the kitchen window
But all care huddles to hearths and kettles.
The sun lobs one wet snowball feebly
Grim and blue
The dusk of the coombe
And the swamp woodland
Sinks with the wren.
See old lips go purple and old brows go paler.
The stiff crow drops in the midnight silence.
Sneezes grow coughs and coughs grow painful.
The vixen yells in the midnight garden.
You wake with the shakes and watch your breathing
Smoke in the moonlight – silent, silent.
In the final stanza, Hughes seems to merge the two worlds– the power of nature and the fleetingness of human concerns. 
 Note Hughes’s deliberately vague address– ‘See old lips’ is an imperative to the reader, but the old lips could be the speaker’s, the reader’s, or, most likely, everyone’s, human and animal alike– they are a general inevitability. 
 
 ‘The stiff crow’ is redolent with symbolism. Traditionally a portent of death, in this stanza it blends in nicely with the overarching blackness of the scene. 

Christmas Card