The Burning Babe
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.
The Jew at Christmas Eve
by Karl Shapiro
I see the thing bell-ringer standing at corners
Fine as a breath, in cloth of red,
With eyes afar and long arm of a reed
Weakly waving a religious bell,
Under the boom of caroling hours
I see the thin bell-ringer standing still,
Breasting the prosperous tide on the Christmas pave.
I see the thing bell-ringer repenting himself
From corner to corner, year to year
Struggling to stand beneath the windy blaze
Of horns that carol out of walls.
He would attract a crying waif
Or garrulous old woman down-at-heels
Or a pair of lovers on the icy pave.
Whom do you summon, Santa of the spare?
Whom do you summon, arm of the reed?
Whom do you cheer with ringing and whom chide,
And who stops at the tripod at your side
And wishes you the time of year?
A few who feed the cauldron of the unfed,
The iron cauldron on the fireless pave.
I see the thin bell-ringer as a flame
Of scarlet, trying to throw the flame
With each sweep of the bell. The tide pours on
And were the ringer in cloth of red
And parts around the ringer of flame
With eyes afar and long arm of a reed
Who shakes the fire on the snowy pave.
Christmas in the Elgin Room
” What is the noise that shakes the night,
And seems to soar to the Pole-star height?”
— ” Christmas bells,
The watchman tells
Who walks this hall that blears us captives with its blight.”
” And what, then, mean such clangs, so clear?”
” — ‘Tis said to have been a day of cheer,
And source of grace
To the human race
Long ere their woven sails winged us to exile here.
” We are those whom Christmas overthrew
Some centuries after Pheidias knew
How to shape us
And bedrape us
And to set us in Athena’s temple for men’s view.
” O it is sad now we are sold —
We gods! for Borean people’s gold,
And brought to the gloom
Of this gaunt room
Which sunlight shuns, and sweet Aurore but enters cold.
” For all these bells, would I were still
Radiant as on Athenai’s Hill.”
— ” And I, and I!”
The others sigh,
” Before this Christ was known, and we had men’s good will.”
Thereat old Helios could but nod,
Throbbed, too, the Ilissus River-god,
And the torsos there
Of deities fair,
Whose limbs were shards beneath some Acropolitan clod:
Demeter too, Poseidon hoar,
Persephone, and many more
Of Zeus’ high breed, —
All loth to heed
What the bells sang that night which shook them to the core.
1905 and 1926
Moonless darkness stands between
by: Gerard Manley Hopkins
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.