Christmas poems
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Father Riley's Horse
© Andrew Barton Paterson
'Twas the horse thief, Andy Regan, that was hunted like a dog
By the troopers of the upper Murray side,
They had searched in every gully -- they had looked in every log,
But never sight or track of him they spied,
A Change of Menu
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Now the new chum loaded his three-nought-three,
It's a small-bore gun, but his hopes were big.
"I am fed to the teeth with old ewe," said he,
"And I might be able to shoot a pig."
And he trusted more to his nose than ear
To give him warning when pigs were near.
Santa Claus
© Andrew Barton Paterson
No sign nor countersign have I,
Through many lands I roam
The whole world over far and wide,
To exiles all at Christmastide,
From those who love them tenderly
I bring a thought of home.
The True Christians
© Henry Vaughan
So stick up ivy and the bays,
And then restore the heathen ways.
Green will remind you of the spring,
Though this great day denies the thing.
Rondeau at the Train Stop
© Erin Belieu
It bothers me: the genital smell of the bay
drifting toward me on the T stop, the train
circling the city like a dingy, year-round
Christmas display. The Puritans were right! Sin
is everywhere in Massachusetts, hell-bound
Battalion-Relief
© Siegfried Sassoon
FALL in! Now get a move on. (Curse the rain.)
We splash away along the straggling village,
Out to the flat rich country, green with June...
And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage,
The Old Huntsman
© Siegfried Sassoon
Id have been prosperous if Id took a farm
Of fifty acres, drove my gig and haggled
At Monday markets; now Ive squandered all
My savings; nigh three hundred pound I got
As testimonial when Id grown too stiff
And slow to press a beaten fox.
Her Late Husband (King's-Hintock, 182-.)
© Thomas Hardy
"No--not where I shall make my own;
But dig his grave just by
The woman's with the initialed stone -
As near as he can lie -
After whose death he seemed to ail,
Though none considered why.
A Christmas Ghost Story.
© Thomas Hardy
And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years?
Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."
The Dance At The Phoenix
© Thomas Hardy
To Jenny came a gentle youth
From inland leazes lone;
His love was fresh as apple-blooth
By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.
The House Of Hospitalities
© Thomas Hardy
Here we broached the Christmas barrel,
Pushed up the charred log-ends;
Here we sang the Christmas carol,
And called in friends.
The Oxen
© Thomas Hardy
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.
Winter
© Robert Southey
A wrinkled crabbed man they picture thee,
Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey
As the long moss upon the apple-tree;
Blue-lipt, an icedrop at thy sharp blue nose,
Contrast
© Robinson Jeffers
The world has many seas, Mediterranean, Atlantic, but
here is the shore of the one ocean.
And here the heavy future hangs like a cloud; the
enormous scene; the enormous games preparing
The Meeting
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
After so long an absence
At last we meet agin:
Does the meeting give us pleasure,
Or does it give us pain?
The Norman Baron
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
et plus profonde, ou l'interet et l'avarice parlent moins haut
que la raison, dans les instants de chagrin domestique, de
maladie, et de peril de mort, les nobles se repentirent de
posseder des serfs, comme d'une chose peu agreable a Dieu, qui
avait cree tous les hommes a son image.--THIERRY, Conquete de
l'Angleterre.
Christmas Bells
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
A Child's Christmas In Wales
© Dylan Thomas
One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound
except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember
whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve
nights when I was six.
As Sleigh Bells seem in summer
© Emily Dickinson
As Sleigh Bells seem in summer
Or Bees, at Christmas show --
So fairy -- so fictitious
The individuals do
