Christmas Poems 2015

It’s been quite a while since I did a topical poetry post, but I decided to do this one after my pastor quoted Love Came Down at Christmas, by one of my earliest poetic loves, Christina Rossetti. I’ve finally finished the Christmas gigs, and have a quiet evening by myself while my wife tends the sick at the hospital, so why not look up some interesting Christmas poems in honor of the season. 

I’ll start off with Christina Rossetti, who captured my youthful heart when I was still a child. While I eventually came to consider Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson to be my very favorite poets; and even after discovering other favorites in my 30s, such as Ranier Maria Rilke, Rabindranath Tagore, and Seamus Heaney, I still find that Rossetti speaks to me. Her devotional poems often sound simple, but on further reflection, they reveal a depth of passion and devotion which resonates with those of us who find faith to anything but simple.

Love Came Down at Christmas

Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, love divine;

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,

Love incarnate, love divine;

Worship we our Jesus:

But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,

Love shall be yours and love be mine,

Love to God and to all men,

Love for plea and gift and sign.

Rossetti always shows tremendous mastery of form, so this poem is intriguing. Throughout, she uses a 3-4-3-4 pattern, with a feminine ending on the odd numbered lines. So, one could almost say she was approaching a standard four foot line in each case, but with a half of a foot missing in the odd numbered lines.

The theme, though, is even more intriguing. What is to be our sign as Christians? “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Rossetti’s final stanza is a more poetic way of stating this. A lovely and profound poem.

Now, to switch gears entirely, there is Ogden Nash. Known today largely for his humorous rhymed couplets (“two-liners”?), his style was, shall we say, a bit tongue in cheek. This poem about the unpleasant child who refused to believe in Santa - and behaved likewise as if there was to be no consequences - ends with one my favorite comeuppances.

The Boy Who Laughed At Santa Claus

In Baltimore there lived a boy.

He wasn't anybody's joy.

Although his name was Jabez Dawes,

His character was full of flaws.

In school he never led his classes,

He hid old ladies' reading glasses,

His mouth was open when he chewed,

And elbows to the table glued.

He stole the milk of hungry kittens,

And walked through doors marked NO ADMITTANCE.

He said he acted thus because

There wasn't any Santa Claus.

Another trick that tickled Jabez

Was crying 'Boo' at little babies.

He brushed his teeth, they said in town,

Sideways instead of up and down.

Yet people pardoned every sin,

And viewed his antics with a grin,

Till they were told by Jabez Dawes,

'There isn't any Santa Claus!'

Deploring how he did behave,

His parents swiftly sought their grave.

They hurried through the portals pearly,

And Jabez left the funeral early.

Like whooping cough, from child to child,

He sped to spread the rumor wild:

'Sure as my name is Jabez Dawes

There isn't any Santa Claus!'

Slunk like a weasel of a marten

Through nursery and kindergarten,

Whispering low to every tot,

'There isn't any, no there's not!'

The children wept all Christmas eve

And Jabez chortled up his sleeve.

No infant dared hang up his stocking

For fear of Jabez' ribald mocking.

He sprawled on his untidy bed,

Fresh malice dancing in his head,

When presently with scalp-a-tingling,

Jabez heard a distant jingling;

He heard the crunch of sleigh and hoof

Crisply alighting on the roof.

What good to rise and bar the door?

A shower of soot was on the floor.

What was beheld by Jabez Dawes?

The fireplace full of Santa Claus!

Then Jabez fell upon his knees

With cries of 'Don't,' and 'Pretty Please.'

He howled, 'I don't know where you read it,

But anyhow, I never said it!'

'Jabez' replied the angry saint,

'It isn't I, it's you that ain't.

Although there is a Santa Claus,

There isn't any Jabez Dawes!'

Said Jabez then with impudent vim,

'Oh, yes there is, and I am him!

Your magic don't scare me, it doesn't'

And suddenly he found he wasn't!

From grimy feet to grimy locks,

Jabez became a Jack-in-the-box,

An ugly toy with springs unsprung,

Forever sticking out his tongue.

The neighbors heard his mournful squeal;

They searched for him, but not with zeal.

No trace was found of Jabez Dawes,

Which led to thunderous applause,

And people drank a loving cup

And went and hung their stockings up.

All you who sneer at Santa Claus,

Beware the fate of Jabez Dawes,

The saucy boy who mocked the saint.

Donner and Blitzen licked off his paint.

Yup, I’m a bit irreverent myself, I’m afraid, and find Nash delicious.

If Ogden Nash had his tongue surgically grafted inside his cheek, Gerard Manley Hopkins instead embodies the tradition of introspection and self-doubt. I love his poetry because of its often lacerating honesty - and also for its unusual use of rhythm and language. Hopkins seems torn between his calling as a Jesuit and his other calling as a poet. (There is some evidence as well that he was gay, and that his sexuality found its only legitimate - for a priest - expression in his poetry.) In any case, his passion and devotion is no less evident than that of Christina Rossetti, who was one of his key influences.

Moonless darkness stands between

Moonless darkness stands between.

Past, the Past, no more be seen!

But the Bethlehem-star may lead me

To the sight of Him Who freed me

From the self that I have been.

Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;

Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;

Now beginning, and alway:

Now begin, on Christmas day.

Such a simple poem, and yet the internal rhymes and cross rhythms are fascinating. It gets better with each read-through. Hopkins, in everything he writes, seems to turn inward. He has a keen eye for nature, and these observations make many of his other poems. But even in those, his heart reflects and changes what he sees, so that the inner and outer life become interwoven. As one who shares Hopkins’ love for creation and his introversion, I find this interconnectivity to reflect my own feelings.

The final selection is by a living poet, Richard Wilbur. He was the US Poet Laureate from 1987 to 1988, and may be best known for his lyrics to Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. I’ll also note his work in translating Moliére.

Wilbur is a “formalist,” so his poems tend to have traditional rhyme and meter. A Christmas Hymn is no exception. The refrain of “And every stone shall cry” is repeated at interesting intervals. Three lines, then six, six, six, then three at the end. Wilbur uses two ideas to tie the entire poem together. First is the stars. Or perhaps the “worlds” which shall be reconciled. The second is that of the stone which paves the highway, made straight in the desert, for our God. From the close up of the rock, to the vastness of the stars, the poem shifts perspective while drawing the connection that unites both.

Like Rossetti’s poem, Wilbur’s also notes the descent of God to the world of mankind, with Love as the motivation and purpose.

A Christmas Hymn

A stable-lamp is lighted

Whose glow shall wake the sky;

The stars shall bend their voices,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry,

And straw like gold shall shine;

A barn shall harbor heaven,

A stall become a shrine.

This child through David’s city

Shall ride in triumph by;

The palm shall strew its branches,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry,

Though heavy, dull, and dumb,

And lie within the roadway

To pave his kingdom come.

Yet he shall be forsaken,

And yielded up to die;

The sky shall groan and darken,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry

For stony hearts of men:

God’s blood upon the spearhead,

God’s love refused again.

But now, as at the ending,

The low is lifted high;

The stars shall bend their voices,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry,

In praises of the child,

By whose descent among us,

The worlds are reconciled.

Although these poems may seem disparate in mood, theme, and construction, I believe they all connect through an idea. God reached out to man, and left us with a decision. What shall our response be? Rossetti suggests that Love is to be our sign - the sign of our encounter with Love Incarnate. Hopkins seeks that he may commune with the Divine. Wilbur suggests that the worlds are reconciled, even though some refuse Love. And Nash, in his own irreverent way, reminds us that those who choose to mock the idea of Love, choosing instead the harming of others and the mockery of virtue, may just, perhaps, be licked by a reindeer.

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! And may God bless us, everyone!

Poems for the New Year

It has been a while since I did a set of poems. New Years Eve is a good enough excuse.

Here are four on the subject that caught my fancy. I present them in chronological order.

The first is by William Blake, from Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794)

Blake described the series as representing two contrary states of the soul. However, despite the seeming naivety of the “Innocence” poems, they often have dark undercurrents, while the more jaded “Experience” poems sometimes show the naivety of pessimism as well.

This particular poem is from the “Innocence” poems, and treats the “New Year” as occurring where it has in most ancient societies: in Spring. It is one of the truly innocent and optimistic of the set, and utilizes Blake’s preferred images of innocence: birds, sheep, and children. He also uses an interesting form. The first eight lines of each stanza are a mere three syllables each. The concluding line is pentameter - two dactyls followed by three iambs.  

Spring

Sound the flute!
Now it’s mute.
Birds delight
Day and night.
Nightingale
In the dale,
Lark in the sky,
Merrily,
Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little boy
Full of joy,
Little girl
Sweet and small.
Cock does crow,
So do you.
Merry voice,
Infant noise,
Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little lamb
Here I am
Come and lick
My white neck.
Let me pull
Your soft wool.
Let me kiss
Your soft face,
Merrily, merrily we welcome in the year. 

Christina Rossetti also uses the imagery of Spring in her set of three short poems entitled “Old and New Year Ditties,” from Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862). (You can read my thoughts on the collection here.) However, she writes of Spring as transient, a symbol not so much of new life but of the brevity of life and the quick passage of time. “Chances, beauty and youth sapped day by day…” Rossetti wrote a great deal of devotional poetry, and these are somewhat in that vein. Her own life was difficult, as she battled ill health and was unlucky in love. To anyone who has experienced sorrow or hardship, these poems capture a bit of that feeling. The bittersweet nature of time and love, which never stays the same, no matter how much we want it to. The certain knowledge that life is too short for us to do and experience all we wish. And above it all, the desire for the Divine. 

Old and New Year Ditties

New Year met me somewhat sad:

Old Year leaves me tired,

Stripped of favourite things I had

Baulked of much desired:

Yet farther on my road to-day

God willing, farther on my way.

New Year coming on apace

What have you to give me?

Bring you scathe, or bring you grace,

Face me with an honest face;

You shall not deceive me:

Be it good or ill, be it what you will,

It needs shall help me on my road,

My rugged way to heaven, please God.

2

Watch with me, men, women, and children dear,

You whom I love, for whom I hope and fear,

Watch with me this last vigil of the year.

Some hug their business, some their pleasure-scheme;

Some seize the vacant hour to sleep or dream;

Heart locked in heart some kneel and watch apart.

Watch with me blessèd spirits, who delight

All through the holy night to walk in white,

Or take your ease after the long-drawn fight.

I know not if they watch with me: I know

They count this eve of resurrection slow,

And cry, “How long?” with urgent utterance strong.

Watch with me Jesus, in my loneliness:

Though others say me nay, yet say Thou yes;

Though others pass me by, stop Thou to bless.

Yea, Thou dost stop with me this vigil night;

To-night of pain, to-morrow of delight:

          I, Love, am Thine; Thou, Lord my God, art mine.

3

Passing away, saith the World, passing away:

Chances, beauty and youth sapped day by day:

Thy life never continueth in one stay.

Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey

That hath won neither laurel nor bay?

I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May:

Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay

On my bosom for aye.

Then I answered: Yea.

Passing away, saith my Soul, passing away:

With its burden of fear and hope, of labour and play;

Hearken what the past doth witness and say:

Rust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array,

A canker is in thy bud, thy leaf must decay.

At midnight, at cockcrow, at morning, one certain day

Lo, the Bridegroom shall come and shall not delay:

Watch thou and pray.

Then I answered: Yea.

Passing away, saith my God, passing away:

Winter passeth after the long delay:

New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender spray,

Turtle calleth turtle in Heaven’s May.

Though I tarry wait for Me, trust Me, watch and pray:

Arise, come away, night is past and lo it is day,

My love, My sister, My spouse, thou shalt hear Me say.

Then I answered: Yea.

Thomas Hardy saw an epic change in the world during his long life. Born solidly in the Victorian Era, he lived through World War One to see the Roaring Twenties. “At the Entering of the New Year” was written in 1918, and has a simple note at the bottom: “December 31. During the War.” Presumably, Hardy intended that the poem be read in that light, as a representation not only of the difference between youth and age, but also of the progress of the war from youthful ambition to the devastation of a generation. The first part captures this exuberance: the rousing party that can be heard from far away. The second part echoes Rossetti with its picture of the incoming year representing an unwanted visitor, the passage of time that is inevitable but nonetheless unwelcome. 

At the Entering of the New Year

I

          (OLD STYLE)

Our songs went up and out the chimney,

And roused the home-gone husbandmen;

Our allemands, our heys, poussettings,

Our hands-across and back again,

Sent rhythmic throbbings through the casements

        On to the white highway,

Where nighted farers paused and muttered,

        "Keep it up well, do they!"

The contrabasso's measured booming

Sped at each bar to the parish bounds,

To shepherds at their midnight lambings,

To stealthy poachers on their rounds;

And everybody caught full duly

        The notes of our delight,

As Time unrobed the Youth of Promise

        Hailed by our sanguine sight.

          II

          (NEW STYLE)

We stand in the dusk of a pine-tree limb,

As if to give ear to the muffled peal,

Brought or withheld at the breeze's whim;

But our truest heed is to words that steal

From the mantled ghost that looms in the gray,

And seems, so far as our sense can see,

To feature bereaved Humanity,

As it sighs to the imminent year its say:—

"O stay without, O stay without,

Calm comely Youth, untasked, untired;

Though stars irradiate thee about

Thy entrance here is undesired.

Open the gate not, mystic one;

        Must we avow what we would close confine?

         With thee, good friend, we would have converse none,

Albeit the fault may not be thine."

The history of the Twentieth Century is some ways one of unbelievably bloody war. From the trenches of World War One spoken of by Hardy, to the final fall of Communism. U2 was founded amidst the seemingly endless strife in Ireland, and many of their songs had their genesis in that environment.

However, “New Years Day,” from their album, War, is about the struggle of the Polish Solidarity movement that would eventually free Poland from the Soviets. This song came out in 1983, but it wouldn’t be until six years later that semi-free elections would be held in Poland, with Lech Wałęsa becoming the first non-communist president of Poland since the Soviet takeover.

U2’s lyrics are anything but naive, but they are hopeful. “Nothing changes” on New Year’s Day - but perhaps it might. And again, we see what may well be a longing for the Divine. Perhaps two can be one, and Love can triumph in the end.

U2 New Years Day

All is quiet on New Year's Day

A world in white gets underway

I want to be with you

Be with you night and day

Nothing changes on New Year's Day

On New Year's Day

I will be with you again

I will be with you again

Under a blood red sky

A crowd has gathered in black and white

Arms entwined, the chosen few

The newspapers says, says

Say it's true it's true...

And we can break through

Though torn in two

We can be one

I...I will begin again

I...I will begin again

Oh...

Maybe the time is right

Oh...maybe tonight...

I will be with you again

I will be with you again

And so we're told this is the golden age

And gold is the reason for the wars we wage

Though I want to be with you

Be with you night and day

Nothing changes

On New Year's Day

So, happy new year, everyone, whether you feel excitement, hope, sorrow, or dread. May Love triumph over Time, when all is said and done.