Kokinshū: Ono no Komachi
“Without end
Do I think of you and so
Come to me at night.
For on the path of dreams at least,
There’s no one to disapprove!”
The Singing Place: Lily Augusta Long
“Cold may lie the day,
And bare of grace;
At night I slip away
To the Singing Place.
A border of mist and doubt
Before the gate,
And the Dancing Stars grow still
As hushed I wait.
Then faint and far away
I catch the beat
In broken rhythm and rhyme
Of joyous feet, —
Lifting waves of sound
That will rise and swell
(If the prying eyes of thought
Break not the spell,)
Rise and swell and retreat
And fall and flee,
As over the edge of sleep
They beckon me.
And I wait as the seaweed waits
For the lifting tide.
To ask would be to awake, —
To be denied.
I cloud my eyes in the mist
That veils the hem, —
And then with a rush I am past, —
I am Theirs, and of Them !
And the pulsing chant swells up
To touch the sky,
And the song is joy, is life, — And the song am I!
The thunderous music peals
Around, o’erhead, —
The dead would awake to hear
If there were dead,
But the life of the throbbing Sun
Is in the song,
And we weave the world anew,
And the Singing Throng
Fill every corner of space —
Over the edge of sleep
I bring but a trace
Of the chants that pulse and sweep
In the Singing Place.”
Reunited: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“Let us begin, dear love, where we left off;
Tie up the broken threads of that old dream,
And go on happy as before, and seem
Lovers again, though all the world may scoff.
Let us forget the graves which lie between
Our parting and our meeting, and the tears
That rusted out the gold-work of the years,
The frosts that fell upon our gardens green.
Let us forget the cold, malicious Fate
Who made our loving hearts her idle toys,
And once more revel in the old sweet joys
Of happy love. Nay, it is not too late!
Forget the deep-ploughed furrows in my brow;
Forget the silver gleaming in my hair;
Look only in my eyes! Oh! darling, there
The old love shone no warmer then than now.
Down in the tender deeps of thy dear eyes
I find the lost sweet memory of my youth,
Bright with the holy radiance of thy truth,
And hallowed with the blue of summer skies.
Tie up the broken threads and let us go,
Like reunited lovers, hand in hand,
Back, and yet onward, to the sunny land
Of our To Be, which was our Long Ago.”
In The Bleak Midwinter: Christina Rossetti
“In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.
What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.”
On Christmas Eve: Amy Lowell
“What is the thing I would say to you
Ere the time when we can say nothing at all,
Neither you to me nor I to you,
And between us is sprung a smoky wall?
If I am left, I shall push the mist
And crack my eyes to a gimlet point
Striving to pierce its every twist
And bore a hole through some weakened joint.
But I know very well it will disappoint
My keenest urge, and I shall be left
Baffled, forsaken, and blind to boot,
But with still the feeling that in some cleft
You linger and watch and maybe hear
The dim and feeble substitute
For speech which may travel from sphere to sphere
And hold itself perpetual
Merging the there and here.
I am counted one who is good at words,
And yet, in placing my thought of you
Where I can see it, hard and clear,
This, that, and the other, in review,
I think that only the songs of birds
Are adequate for the task which I
Can never even make the attempt
To come at ever so haltingly.
I earn my own contempt
That I should presume to try.
You have lifted my eyes, and made me whole,
And given me purpose, and held me faced
Toward the horizon you once had placed
As my aim’s grand measure. Your starry truth
Has shown me the worm-holes in Earth’s apple,
You have soothed me when I dared not look,
And forced me on to seek and grapple
With the nightmare doubts which block the ways
Of a matrix-breaking, visioning soul
When, lacking the arrogance of youth,
I started to carve the granite days
Into tablets of a book.
The hundred kindly daily things,
I have numbered them all though I may not speak them.
Sitting here on this Christmas Eve,
I think of you asleep above,
And the house has a gentleness which clings,
And a wide content of love.
What you have said and what you have done,
I should not have known enough to seek them,
But now the very rooms you leave
Have a peace which hangs like a hyacinth scent
All about them.
Your ways, your thoughts,
I would surely rather lose the sun
Than be without them.
So absolutely is it I am bent
To know how you are excellent.
Dearest, I have written it down
For your Christmas Day, but not half is said.
I might write so long it would span the town
And yet scarce mention more than a shred
Of you and you, and you and me;
And of all that I know so well to be,
How wretchedly I have scratched the stone!
You must know the end instead.”
The Stars: Mary Carolyn Davies
“The stars are lighted candles
Upon a Christmas tree
(The branches that they hang upon
We cannot ever see)
On Christmas Eve the angels stand
About it after tea,
And if an angel’s very good
He gets a present, as he should.”
The Christmas Night: Lucy Maud Montgomery
“Wrapped was the world in slumber deep,
By seaward valley and cedarn steep,
And bright and blest were the dreams of its sleep;
All the hours of that wonderful night-tide through
The stars outblossomed in fields of blue,
A heavenly chaplet, to diadem
The King in the manger of Bethlehem.
Out on the hills the shepherds lay,
Wakeful, that never a lamb might stray,
Humble and clean of heart were they;
Thus it was given them to hear
Marvellous harpings strange and clear,
Thus it was given them to see
The heralds of the nativity.
In the dim-lit stable the mother mild
Looked with holy eyes on her child,
Cradled him close to her heart and smiled;
Kingly purple nor crown had he,
Never a trapping of royalty;
But Mary saw that the baby’s head
With a slender nimbus was garlanded.
Speechless her joy as she watched him there,
Forgetful of pain and grief and care,
And every thought in her soul was a prayer;
While under the dome of the desert sky
The Kings of the East from afar drew nigh,
And the great white star that was guide to them
Kept ward o’er the manger of Bethlehem.”
A Christmas Glee: Helen Chase
“Come, haste, let us seek it,
The dear Christmas holly—
Its crimson lights gleam brightly forth from the snow;
See it reach out its bonnie green boughs as an offering—
A rare Yule-tide gift on its friends to bestow!
Go seek it, ye children,
The dear Christmas holly—
Seek it first for the home-shrine with swift, loving hands;
Bring its sheen and its glow to the place made most sacred
By tears and by joys, throughout kingdoms and lands.
Go seek it, ye yeomen,
The brave Christmas holly—
Make a forest of emerald and red in the kirk—
Bring the rarest of sprays for the altar—and to it
Come, worshipers, all—be ye Christian or Turk.
Go seek it, ye skeptic,
The dear Christmas holly—
As you clasp this bright emblem of Yule-tide—forsake
Your scorn of the truth and your grim speculations,
And of the deep joy of the Yule-tide partake.
So gather it, good folk,
The dear Christmas holly,
Let it glow from the altar, and shine at the feast—
May the glory and love of the Christ-child surround us
As shone the light down from His star in the East!”
Responsory for the Virgin: Hildegard of Bingen
“O sweetest branch,
you bloom from Jesse’s stock!
How great the mighty power,
that divinity
upon a daughter’s beauty gazed—
an eagle turns his eye
into the sun:
As Heaven’s Father tended to the Virgin’s splendor
when he willed his Word
in her to be incarnate.
For in God’s mystic mystery,
the Virgin’s mind illuminéd,
the flower bright—a wonder!—
forth from that Virgin
sprung:
As Heaven’s Father tended to the Virgin’s splendor
when he willed his Word
in her to be incarnate.”
Victory: Elizabeth Jennings
“Down to that littleness, down to all that
Crying and hunger, all that tiny flesh And flickering spirit – down the great stars fall,
Here the great kings bow.
Here the farmer sees his fragile lambs,
Here the wise man throws his books away.
This manger is the universe’s cradle,
This singing mother has the words of truth.
Here the ox and ass and sparrow stop, Here the hopeless man breaks into trust.
God, you have made a victory for the lost.
Give us this daily Bread, this little Host.”
Annunciation: Sylvia Kantaris
“It seems I must have been more fertile than most
to have taken that wind-blown
thistledown softly-spoken word
into my body and grown big-bellied with it.
Nor was I the first: there had been
rumours of such goings-on before my turn
came—tales of swansdown. Mine
had no wings of feathers actually
but it was hopeless trying to convince them.
They like to think it was mystical
encounter, although they must know
I am not of that fibre—and to say I was
‘trouble’ is laughable.
What I do remember is a great rejoicing,
my body’s arch and flow, the awe,
and the ringing and singing in my ears—
and then the world stopped for a little while.
But still they will keep on about the Word,
which is their name for it, even though I’ve
told them that is definitely
not how I would put it.
I should have known they’d try to take
possession of my ecstasy and
swaddle it in their portentous terminology.
I should have kept it hidden in the dark
web of my veins . . .
Though this child grows in me—
not unwanted certainly, but
not intended on my part; the risk
did not concern me at the time, naturally.
I must be simple to have told them anything.
Just because I stressed the miracle of it
they’ve rumoured it about the place that I’m
immaculate—but then they always were afraid
of female sexuality.
I’ve pondered these things lately in my mind.
If they should canonize me
(setting me up as chaste and meek and mild)
God only knows what nonsense
they’ll visit on the child.”
The Christmas Silence: Margaret Deland
“Hushed are the pigeons cooing low
On dusty rafters of the loft;
And mild-eyed oxen, breathing soft,
Sleep on the fragrant hay below.
Dim shadows in the corner hide;
The glimmering lantern’s rays are shed
Where one young lamb just lifts his head,
Then huddles ‘gainst his mother’s side.
Strange silence tingles in the air;
Through the half-open door a bar
Of light from one low-hanging star
Touches a baby’s radiant hair.
No sound: the mother, kneeling, lays
Her cheek against the little face.
Oh human love! Oh heavenly grace!
’Tis yet in silence that she prays!
Ages of silence end to-night;
Then to the long-expectant earth
Glad angels come to greet His birth
In burst of music, love, and light!”
BC-AD: U A Fanthorpe
“This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future’s
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.
This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.
This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.
And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.”
Madonna Mary: Ethel Romig Fuller
“Hair like shadows,
Mouth a cherry,
Sandal-shod
Madonna Mary,
Wore God’s child –
A white rose pressed,
Petal and thorn
To her young breast.
Miracle
That angels hailed,
That a wondering new star
Trailed;
Mystery
Beyond the ken
Of the Orient’s
Three wise men…
Petal and thorn…
A flower to toss
From a mother’s arms
To a cross… to a cross. ”
The Christmas Holly: Eliza Cook
“The holly! the holly! oh, twine it with bay —
Come give the holly a song;
For it helps to drive stern winter away,
With his garment so sombre and long;
It peeps through the trees with its berries of red,
And its leaves of burnished green,
When the flowers and fruits have long been dead,
And not even the daisy is seen.
Then sing to the holly, the Christmas holly,
That hangs over peasant and king;
While we laugh and carouse ‘neath its glittering boughs,
To the Christmas holly we’ll sing.
The gale may whistle, the frost may come
To fetter the gurgling rill;
The woods may be bare, and warblers dumb,
But holly is beautiful still.
In the revel and light of princely halls
The bright holly branch is found;
And its shadow falls on the lowliest walls,
While the brimming horn goes round.
Then sing to the holly, the Christmas holly,
That hangs over peasant and king;
While we laugh and carouse ‘neath its glittering boughs,
To the Christmas holly we’ll sing.
The ivy lives long, but its home must be
Where graves and ruins are spread;
There’s beauty about the cypress tree,
But it flourishes near the dead;
The laurel the warrior’s brow may wreathe,
But it tells of tears and blood;
I sing the holly, and who can breathe
Aught of that that is not good?
Then sing to the holly, the Christmas holly,
That hangs over peasant and king;
While we laugh and carouse ‘neath its glittering boughs,
To the Christmas holly we’ll sing.”
Amazing Peace: Maya Angelou
“Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.
Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.
We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?
Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.
It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.
Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.
In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.
We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.
We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.
It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.
On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.
At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth’s tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.
We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.
Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.”
At Christmas Time: Dora Sigerson Shorter
“For that old love I once adored
I decked my halls and spread my board
At Christmas time.
With all the winter’s flowers that grow
I wreathed my room, and mistletoe
Hung in the gloom of my doorway,
Wherein my dear lost love might stray
When joy-bells chime.
What phantom was it entered there
And drank his wine and took his chair
At Christmas time?
With holly boughs and mistletoe
He crowned his head, and at my woe
And tears I shed laughed long and loud;
“Get back, O phantom! to thy shroud
When joy-bells chime.””
A Christ Child Day in Australia: Ethel Turner
“A COPPER concave of a sky
Hangs high above my head.
Vague thunder sullenly goes by
With dragging, muffled tread.
The hot air faints upon the grass,
And at its bitter breath,
Ten thousand trembling flower-souls pass,
With fragrant sighs, to death.
There comes no breeze. No breeze has sprung
And sweetly blown for days.
Dead air in silent sheets has hung,
Smooth wavering sheets of haze.
The very birds that erstwhile soared
Hide hushed in haunts of trees.
Nature no longer walks abroad,
But crouches on her knees.
Crouches and hides her withered face,
Above her barren breast,
And I forget her yester grace
And the clustering mouths she blessed.
’Tis in no alien land I sit,
Almost it is mine own.
Its fibres to my fibres knit,
Its bone into my bone.
These are no alien skies I know,
Yet something in my blood
Calls sharp for breath of ice and snow
Across the wide, salt flood.
Calls loud and will not be denied,
Cries, with imperious tears,
And mem’ries that have never died
Leap wildly o’er the years:
The thrill of England’s winter days,
Of England’s frost-sharp air,
The ice along her waterways,
Her snowfields stretching fair,
Her snowfields gleaming through the dark,
Her bird with breast aglow,
On the white land a crimson mark,
—Ah England, England’s snow!
Fair as a queen, this far south land,
A wayward bride, half won,
Her dowry careless flung like sand,
Her royal flax unspun.
And if beneath her ardent glance
Her subjects faint and reel,
Does she but melt, stoop to entrance,
They kiss her hem and kneel.
And I—I kneel. For oft her hand
Has gently touched my hair.
Then with a throb I rise and stand,
—A Queen!—why should she spare!
Yet when the Christ-Child mem’ries steal,
Some ebb-tide swells to flood.
Ah, England—just once more to feel
Thy winter in my blood.”
Before The Ice: Emily Dickinson
“Before the ice is in the pools—
Before the skaters go,
Or any check at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow—
Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!”
Santa's Stocking: Katharine Lee Bates
“Dame Snow has been knitting all day
With needles of crystal and pearl
To make a big, beautiful stocking
For Santa, her merriest son;
And now in some wonderful way
She has hung it, by twist and by twirl,
On the tip of the moon, and sits rocking,
Old mother, her day’s work done.
How long and how empty it flaps,
Like a new, white cloud in the sky!
The stars gleam above it for candles;
But who is to fill it and trim?
Dame Snow in her rocking-chair naps.
When Santa comes home by and by,
Will he find — O scandal of scandals! —
No Christmas at all for him?
Dear Saint of the reindeer sleigh,
At his tink-a-link-tinkle-a-link,
The evergreens blossom with tapers;
’Tis Christmas by all the clocks;
And wherever he calls, they say,
The most polished andirons wink,
The sulkiest chimney capers,
And Baby kicks off its socks.
His pack is bursting with toys;
The dollies cling round his neck;
And sleds come slithering after
As he takes the roofs at a run.
Blithe lover of girls and boys,
Bonbons he pours by the peck;
Holidays, revels and laughter,
Feasting and frolic and fun.
Who would dream that his kind heart aches
— Heart shaped like a candied pear,
Sweet heart of our housetop rover —
For the homes where no carols resound,
For the little child that wakes
To a hearth all cold and bare,
For Santa, his white world over,
Finds Christmas doesn’t go round!
Dame Snow has been knitting all day
With needles of crystal and pearl
To make a big, beautiful stocking
For Santa, her busiest son;
And now in some wonderful way
She has hung it, by twist and by twirl,
On the tip of the moon, and sits rocking,
Old mother, her day’s work done.
Let us bring the dear Saint from our store
Fair gifts wrapped softly in love;
Let all gentle children come flocking,
Glad children whose Christmas is sure;
Let us bring him more treasures and more,
While the star-candles glisten above,
For whatever we put in his stocking,
Santa Claus gives to the poor.”
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