Christmas poems
/ page 31 of 35 /The Channel Swimmer
© Marriott Edgar
Would you hear a Wild tale of adventure
Of a hero who tackled the sea,
A super-man swimming the ocean,
Then hark to the tale of Joe Lee.
Sam's Christmas Pudding
© Marriott Edgar
It was Christmas Day in the trenches
In Spain in Penninsular War,
And Sam Small were cleaning his musket
A thing as he'd ne're done before.
The Czar's Last Christmas Letter: A Barn in the Urals
© Norman Dubie
You were never told, Mother, how old Illyawas drunk
That last holiday, for five days and nightsHe stumbled through Petersburg forming
A choir of mutes, he dressed them in pink ascension gownsAnd, then, sold Father's Tirietz stallion so to rent
A hall for his Christmas recital: the audienceWas rowdy but Illya in his black robes turned on them
Modern Love XXIII: 'Tis Christmas Weather
© George Meredith
'Tis Christmas weather, and a country house
Receives us: rooms are full: we can but get
An attic-crib. Such lovers will not fret
At that, it is half-said. The great carouse
A Year's Carols
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
JANUARY
HAIL, January, that bearest here
On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year
That weeps and trembles to be born.
Christmas Antiphones
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
Thou whose birth on earth
Angels sang to men,
While thy stars made mirth,
Saviour, at thy birth,
This day born again;
At The Fishhouses
© Elizabeth Bishop
Down at the water's edge, at the place
where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp
descending into the water, thin silver
tree trunks are laid horizontally
across the gray stones, down and down
at intervals of four or five feet.
Music on Christmas Morning
© Anne Brontë
To greet with joy the glorious morn,
Which angels welcomed long ago,
When our redeeming Lord was born,
To bring the light of Heaven below;
The Powers of Darkness to dispel,
And rescue Earth from Death and Hell.
The Boy Who Laughed At Santa Claus
© Ogden Nash
In Baltimore there lived a boy.
He wasn't anybody's joy.
Although his name was Jabez Dawes,
His character was full of flaws.
The Defence of Guenevere
© William Morris
But, learning now that they would have her speak,
She threw her wet hair backward from her brow,
Her hand close to her mouth touching her cheek,
The Chapel in Lyonesse
© William Morris
All day long and every day,
From Christmas-Eve to Whit-Sunday,
Within that Chapel-aisle I lay,
And no man came a-near.
Sir Galahad, a Christmas Mystery
© William Morris
It is the longest night in all the year,
Near on the day when the Lord Christ was born;
Six hours ago I came and sat down here,
And ponder'd sadly, wearied and forlorn.
In Arthur's House
© William Morris
"As quoth the lion to the mouse,"
The man said; "in King Arthur's House
Men are not names of men alone,
But coffers rather of deeds done."
Intramuros
© Roddy Lumsden
She lies in her well-kept apartment
above the spick and span cathedral
in the heart of the walled city
above Manila Bay and she dreams
Rosemary
© Marianne Clarke Moore
Beauty and Beauty's son and rosemary -
Venus and Love, her son, to speak plainly -
born of the sea supposedly,
at Christmas each, in company,
braids a garland of festivity.
Not always rosemary -
The Christmas Gift For Mother
© Edgar Albert Guest
In the Christmas times of the long ago,
There was one event we used to know
That was better than any other;
It wasn't the toys that we hoped to get,
But the talks we had--and I hear them yet--
Of the gift we'd buy for Mother.
The Christmas Goose
© William Topaz McGonagall
Mr. Smiggs was a gentleman,
And he lived in London town;
His wife she was a good kind soul,
And seldom known to frown.
Calamity in London
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1897, and on the night of Christmas day,
That ten persons' lives were taken sway,
By a destructive fire in London, at No. 9 Dixie Street,
Alas! so great was the fire, the victims couldn't retreat.