A Christmas Carol

1830 –

1894

The Shepherds had an Angel,
The Wise Men had a star,
But what have I, a little child,
     To guide me home from far,
Where glad stars sing together
     And singing angels are?

Those Shepherds through the lonely night
     Sat watching by their sheep,
Until they saw the heavenly host
     Who neither tire nor sleep,
All singing “Glory, glory,”
     In festival they keep.

The Wise Men left their country
     To journey morn by morn,
With gold and frankincense and myrrh,
     Because the Lord was born:
God sent a star to guide them
     And sent a dream to warn.

My life is like their journey,
     Their star is like God’s book;
I must be like those good Wise Men
     With heavenward heart and look:
But shall I give no gifts to God?—
     What precious gifts they took!

This poem was published in Poems for Children (Educational Publishing Company, 1907). This poem is in the public domain.

A Christmas Carol

In the bleak mid-winter
   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 mid-winter 
   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,
A breastful of milk
   And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
   Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
   Which adore.

Angels an

Christina Rossetti

2011

A Coast-Nightmare

I have a friend in ghostland—
   Early found, ah me, how early lost!—
Blood-red seaweeds drip along that coastland
   By the strong sea wrenched and tossed.
In every creek there slopes a dead man’s islet,
   And such an one in every bay;
All unripened in the unended twilight:

Christina Rossetti

1896

from "Diverse Worlds, Time and Eternity"

The half moon shows a face of plaintive sweetness
Ready and poised to wax or wane;
A fire of pale desire in incompleteness,
Tending to pleasure or to pain:—
Lo, while we gaze she rolleth on in fleetness
To perfect loss or perfect gain.
Half bitterness we know, we know half sweetness;

Christina Rossetti

1893

Poems

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A Christmas Carol

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