Twelve Days of Christmas Poems

     The Christmas season grows longer each year; now, I see decorations rising here and there even before the Halloween candy has been passed out to all the kids. Then, suddenly Christmas decorations will be pulled down, packed up and stored in basements and attics until the next season begins. Not many people are aware that Christmas Day begins the Twelve Days of Christmas ending with the Feast of the Epiphany. The word “Epiphany” means revelation or manifestation. The western tradition of the Epiphany acknowledges the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus. And those twelve days should be remembered, if not for religious reasons, then for poetic ones. To commemorate the often forgotten Twelve Days of Christmas, I am offering 12 poems, one to be read each day until January 6th. Some are religious, some joyous, some secular, and some brooding.

Day 1: Excepts from “The Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” by John Milton (1608-1674).

                                                 I
This is the month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of heaven's eternal King,
Of wedded maid, and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
     That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

                                                 II
That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont at heaven's high council-table,
To sit the midst of trinal unity,
He laid aside; and here with us to be,
     Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with a darksome house of mortal clay.

                                               III
Say heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the heaven by the sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching host keep watch in squadrons 
bright?

                                               IV
See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet,
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the hour first, thy Lord to greet, 
     And join thy voice unto the angel quire,
From out his secret alar touched with hallowed fire.

                                         The Hymn
                                                  I
It was the winter wild,
While the heaven-born-child
     All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to him
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
     With her great master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun her lusty parmour.

                                                  II
Only with speeches fair
She woos the gently air
     To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
     The saintly veil of maiden white to throw,
Confounded that her maker's eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.      

                                                  III
But he her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace,
     She crowed with green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphere
His ready harbinger,
     With turtle wing, the amorous clouds dividing;
And waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through the sea and land.

                                                  IV
No war, or battle's sound
Was heard the world around
     The idle spear and shield were high uphung
The hooked chariot stood
Unstained with hostile blood,
     The trumpet spake not to the armed throng,
And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

                                                  V
But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
     His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kissed,
     Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave...

                                                    XV
Yea Truth, and Justice then
Will down return to men,
     Orbed in a rainbow; and like glories wearing
Mercy will sit between,
Throned in celestial sheen,
     With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering,
And heaven as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

                                                       XVI
But wisest fate says no,
This must not yet be so,
     The babe lies yet in smiling infancy,
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss;
     So both himself and us to glorify:
Yet first to those ychained in sleep,
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep.

The peace and joy of Christ’s birth brings, which is celebrated each Christmas day, is set aside by Milton. Instead, he lays out the full consequence of this birth. Christ is born to redeem the world, to judge ultimately the human race, to save or condemn the worthy and unworthy. To accomplish this, first, Christ must die on the cross, rise from death, and finally return to judge the living and the dead. This early poem by Milton anticipates his epic of the story of Adam and Eve and original sin: Paradise Lost.

Day 2: “Christ’s Nativity,” by Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)

                                   I
Awake, glad heart! Get up and sing,
It is the birthday of the King,
     Awake! Awake!
     The sun doth shake
Light from his locks, and all the way
Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

Awake, awake! Hark, how the woods rings
Winds whisper, and the busy springs
     A consort make;
     Awake, awake!
Man is their high-priest, and should rise
To offer up the sacrifice.

I would I were some bird or star,
Fluttering in woods, or lifted liar far
     Above this inn
     And road of sin!
Then either star, or bird, should be
Shining,or singing still to Thee.

I would I had in my best part
Fit rooms for Thee! Or my heart 
     Were so clean as
     Thy manger was!
But I am all filth, and obscure,
Yet if Thou wilt, Thou canst make clean.

Sweet Jesu! will then; Let no more
This leper haunt, and soil Thy door,
     Curse him, ease him
     O release him!
And let once more by mystic birth
The Lord of life be born in earth.

                                   II
How kind is heaven to Man! If here
     One sinner doth amend
Straight there is joy, and every sphere
     In music doth contend;
And shall we then no voices lift?
     Are mercy, and salvation
Not worth our thanks? Is life a gift
     Of no more acceptation?
Shall He that did come down from thence,
     Of all His woes remain?
Can neither Love, nor sufferings bind?
     Are we all stone, and earth?
Neither His bloody passions mind,
     Nor one day bless His birth?
Alas, my God! Thy birth now here
Must not be numbered in the year.

The first two stanzas are pure praise for the birth of Christ, beginning with

Awake glad heart! get up and sing!
It is the birthday of thy King
Awake! Awake.

The speaker calls on you to celebrate and conveys a rapturous anticipation for the event of Christ’s birth. The air is filled with the sun’s light and perfumes fill the air. In the second stanza, the natural world of winds, woods, and streams create a congenial concert—all of which symbolize the importance of the day. When the speaker says that man “should rise/To offer up the sacrifice” at the second stanza, the poem shifts to man’s imperfections, “I would I were some bird, or star,” but the speaker knows man’s imperfections make him unworthy and wishes “that my heart/Were so clean as/Thy manger was!” Therefore, man can only ask for Redemption:

 Sweet Jesus will then; Let no more
This leper haunt, and soil Thy door,
   Cure him, ease him
   O release him!
And let once more by mystic birth
The Lord of life be born in earth.

The poem not only celebrates Christ’s birth, but also man’s desire to be worthy of that divine birth. The speaker yearns for forgiveness through a sublime experience.

Day 3: “The Burning Babe,” Robert Southwell SJ (1561-1595)

As I in hoary winter night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
"Alas!" quoth he, "but newly born, in fiery hearts I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
    So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood."
    With this he vanished out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
    And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.

Southwell’s poem is one of the most shocking readers will come across in this post. This strange poem begins with the speaker out on a frigid winter night when he feels himself warmed by something above him. He is struck then by the sight of a burning Babe hovering in the air, who as he burns, has tears pouring from his eyes. While he wonders why the tears do not extinguish the flames, the burning babe begins to speak to him. The Babe explains the reasons for the fire and the tears. They represent God’s love and compassion for the fallen human race. Certainly, that notion will strike many readers as rather odd. But perhaps even more mystifying is the fuel of the fire, which the Babe tells the speaker are “wounding thorns.” These thorns symbolize the crown of thorns that his torturers will fasten to his head and strike with sticks during the hours prior to his execution. As in Milton’s poem, this Christmas poem is no adoring celebration of Jesus’s birth but, portends the bloody torture and crucifixion he will suffer for the salvation of the human race. A brief note about Robert Southwell might explain his inclination to conceive of the nativity as he did. Southwell was a Jesuit priest who clandestinely administered the outlawed Catholic sacraments in England during the reign of Elizabeth I. He knew he risks being captured and brutally tortured and killed if caught, but believed the suffering he would have to endure would be a duty and an honor for a Catholic priest. He wrote, “let them draw us upon hurdles, hang us, unbowel us alive, mangle us, boil us, set our quarters upon their gates, to be meat for birds of the air…” It seems likely that his fervent religious belief influenced the imagery he employed in his poetry. Anyway, he got what he wished for: In 1592, he was captured by Richard Topcliffe, tortured for two years, then hanged, drawn and quartered in 1595.

Day 4: “The Oxen,” by Thomas Hardy (1840)

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Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees."
As elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave 
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,"
Come; see the oxen kneel,

"I the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might so.

“The Oxen” was published in the Times of London, on Christmas Eve, 1915. In the first half of the poem, the speaker is remembering a Christmas Eve many years ago when he was a child. The second half shifts to the time in which it was written, 1915, when Hardy was 65 years old. So much simpler than the three previous poems, yet no less powerful, Hardy juxtaposes pure childhood belief with adult nostalgic yearning.

Day 5: “Journey of The Magi” by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel at night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of  silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

“The Journey of the Magi” was published in 1927, a year after Eliot converted to Anglicanism and critics have suggested that the poem is an allegorical representation of Eliot’s religious struggles. Be that as it may, the poem reimagines the biblical story in the Gospel of Matthew the Magi’s journey to pay homage to the new king of the Jews, the infant Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. One of the Magi recounts the journey’s difficulties, their reaction to the infant Jesus and what the experience ultimately meant to him. In stanza 1, the speaker candidly complains about the weather, the accommodations, the hostility of people they met, their lack of sleep and the thought this journey was a mistake. Stanza 2 includes imagery that intimates a vision of Jesus’s betrayal and crucifixion and the curious reaction the Magi have once they encounter the infant Jesus. Finally, stanza 3 reveals the profound transformation, the epiphany, the speaker experiences as a result of this visit. Birth and death become reversed and the pagan gods he once worshipped are banished to oblivion.

Day 6: “The Magi,” by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depths of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
and all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

In this rather ambiguous poem, Yeats takes the story of the Magi shapes it to align with his own theory that the birth of Christ would not ultimately result in the end of history with Christ’s death, resurrection and second coming. Yeats believed that history moved in two-thousand-year cycles and Christ and Christianity were just one cycle in this continuous movement. Thus, he envisions the Magi as “unsatisfied” by Jesus’s birth and his death, “Calvary’s turbulence.” To see what Yeats thought would follow the era of Christian, see his poem “The Second Coming.”

Day 7: “In Memoriam A. H. H.,” (Sect. 106) by Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
  The flying cloud, the frosty light:
  The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
  Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
  The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
  For those that here we see no more;
  Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
  And ancient forms of party strife;
  Ring in the noble modes of life,
With sweeter manner, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
  The faithless coldness of the times;
  Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
  The civic slander and the spite;
  Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
  Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
  Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
  The larger heart, the kinder hand;
  Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Tennyson’s poem was written for his closest friend and confidant, Arthur Hallam, who died suddenly when he was twenty-two years old. Profoundly grief stricken by his death, he wrote this elegy for him over a period of seventeen years, composing 131 sections of the work, which numbers nearly 3000 lines. The poem is more than simply an elegy as Tennyson reflects on several ideas and issues that affected Victorians during the rapidly changing time in which they lived. Of course, the section above is about the change from the old year to the new. Tennyson directly addresses Christmas in sections 28,78,108.

Day 8: “In the Bleak Midwinter,” by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made a 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 him a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet What I can give Him: my heart.

This is another nativity poem, which became a popular carol sang in English churches. The poem begins with an image of a “bleak midwinter” of cold and snow for the Christmas Nativity setting. This ominous beginning is followed by a series of contrasts. In stanza 2, “heaven cannot hold him,” yet earth will not be able to sustain him. Ironically, when “He comes to reign” both “Heaven and earth shall flee away.” Despite his awesome power, a lowly “stable-place” will “suffice” for his birth. This contrast continues in stanza 3 where angels worship “Him” and “Fall down before Him” as he lay sleeping on hay among an ox and an ass. The angels seem to dominate stanza 4 until the solitary figure of “His Mother” Mary appears and with maternal love bestows “a kiss” on the sleeping infant. As the poem concludes, the persona of a speaker slips, and Rossetti herself affirms her presence and the conviction of her Christian faith as she humbly offers to give Jesus her complete devotion-her heart. Her humility mirrors the humility of both Jesus’s birth and his eventual self-sacrifice on the cross.

Day 9: “A Christmas Carol,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

I
The shepherds went their hasty way,
   And found the lowly stable-shed
Where the Virgin-Mother lay:
   And now they checked their eager tread,     
For the babe, that at her bosom clung,
A Mother's song the Virgin-Mother sung.

II
They told her how a glorious light,
   Streaming from a heavenly throng,
Around them shone, suspending night!
   While sweeter than a mother's song,
Blest Angles heralded the Saviour's birth!
Glory to God on high! and Peace on Earth.

III
She listened to the tale divine,
   And closer still the Babe she pressed;
And while she cried, the Babe is mine!
   The milk rushed faster to her breast:
Joy rose within her, like a summer's morn;
Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.

IV
Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,
   Poor, simple, and of low estate!
That Strife should vanish, Battle cease,
   O why should this thy soul elate?
Sweet Music's loudest note, the Poet's story,
Did'st thou ne'er love to hear of Fame and Glory?

V
And is not War a youthful king,
   A stately Hero clad in Mail?
Beneath his footsteps laurels spring;
   Him Earth's majestic monarchs hail
Their friend, their playmate! and his bold bright eye
Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh.

VI
"Tell this in some more courtly scene,
   To maids and youths in robes of state!
I am a woman poor and mean,
   And therefore is my soul elate.
War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled,
That from the aged father tears his child!

VII
"A muderous fiend, by fiends adored,
   He kills the Sire and starves the son;
The Husband kill, and from her board
   Steals all his Widow's toil had won;
Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away
all safety from the Night, all comfort from the day. 

VIII
"Then wisely is my soul elate,
   That strife should vanish, battle cease:
I'm poor and of a low estate,
   The Mother of the Prince of Peace.
Joy rises in me, like a summer morn:
Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born."

Coleridge first published this poem in the Morning Post, December 25th, 1799. When the shepherds arrived at the stable, they are awestruck by the “glorious light/Streaming from a heavenly throng.” But when they learn that the “Babe” will be the “prince of Peace," and that he will bring “Peace on Earth,” they ask Mary why this would elate her. They try to convince her that the traditional heroic qualities Poets have endowed their kings and heroes with should also be her son’s. Doesn’t she know that a true king embodies the martial qualities found in “A stately Hero clad in mail?” “Poor, simple” Mary shrewdly counters the shepherds’ by distinguishing the difference between the fantasy world of the poets and the brutal, bestial reality of war.

Day 10: “I saw a Stable,” by Mary Coleridge (1861-1907)

I saw a stable, low and very bare,
A little child in a manger.
The oxen knew Him, had Him in their care,
To men He was a stranger.
The safety of the world was lying there,
And the world's danger.

Mary Coleridge was the great grandniece of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Her interesting, brief nativity poem warrants comparison with the other nativity poems. The first half is a simply traditional depiction of the babe in the manger. The second half convey mystery and paradox. Coleridge intimates that “A little child in a manger” has been born not only to save mankind, but also to judge humanity.

Day 11: “A Hymn on the Nativity of My Savior,” Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

I sing the birth was born tonight,
The Author both of life and light;
The angels so did sound it,
And like the ravished shepherds said,
Who saw the light, and were afraid,
Yet searched, and true they found it.

The Son of God, the eternal King,
That did us all salvation bring,
And freed the soul from danger;
He whom the whole world could not take,
The Word, which heaven and earth did make,
Was now laid in a manger.

The Father's wisdom willed it so,
The Son's obedience knew no "No,"
Both wills were in one stature;
And as that wisdom had decreed,
The Word was now made Flesh indeed,
And took on Him our nature.

What comfort by Him do we win?
Who made Himself the Prince of sin,
To make us heirs of glory?
To see this Babe, all innocence,
A Martyr born in our defense,
Can man forget this story?

Jonson’s poem commemorates the birth of Christ, seeing his nativity as initiating a new era for the human race. He nimbly juxtaposes the paradox of an “eternal king” with the image of this humble infant lying in the manger. In stanza 3, he alludes to the Gospel of John with “The Word was now made Flesh indeed,” and in stanza 4, tethers Christ’s birth to his sacrifice on the cross. With this short poem, Jonson furnishes us with a polished, terse vision of the two foundational events of Christianity.

Day 12: “The House of Hospitalities,” by Thomas Hardy

Here we broached the Christmas barrel,
   Pushed up the charred log-end;
 Here we sang the Christmas carol,
      And called in friends.

Time has tired me since we met here
   Where the folk now dead were young.
Since the viands were outset here
      And quaint song sung.

And the worm has bored the viol
   That used to lead the tune,
Rust eaten out the dial
      That struck the night's moon.

Now no Christmas brings in neighbours,
   And the New Year comes unlit;
Where we sang the mole now labours,
      And spiders knit.

Yet at midnight if here walking,
   When the moon sheets wall and tree,
I see forms of old time talking,
      Who smile on me.

It might seem sad to end the Twelve Days of Christmas poems with Thomas Hardy, who is known for his fatalism and his dark vision of human existence. Certainly, this poem reveals the speaker’s sadness at the passage of time. In stanzas 1-4, the speaker remembers the past when he and his companions celebrated Christmas compared with his loneliness, the decay he sees around him, and the darkness the new year forebodes for him. Yet, the speaker proposes some hope in the final stanza. He imagines walking under sheets of moonlight and seeing “forms of old time talking” with him. Though the companions of the past are dead, his memory is his house of hospitality and within his imagination he can see and feel those smiles from years past.