The 12th Day of Christmas
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Reviews on Monday, January 05, 2009
The New Year’s Gift
Robert Herrick
Let others look for pearl and gold
Tissues, or tabbies manifold:
Only one lock of that sweet hay
Whereon the blessed Baby lay,
Or one poor swaddling clout, shall be
The richest New Year’s gift to me.
Image: Dante Gabriel Rosetti
The 11th Day of Christmas
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Reviews on Sunday, January 04, 2009
On The Infancy Of Our Savior
Frances Quarles
Hail! blessed Virgin, full of heavenly grace,
Blest above all that sprang from human race,
Whose heaven-saluted womb brought forth in one
A blessed Savior and a blessed Son.
O what a ravishment ‘t had been to see
Thy little Savior perking on thy knee!
To see Him nuzzle in thy virgin breast,
His milk-white body all unclad, undressed;
To see thy busy fingers... READ MORE
The 10th Day of Christmas
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Reviews on Saturday, January 03, 2009
Moonless Darkness Stands Between
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.
Image: Maria Budiyatmi, Indonesia
The 9th Day of Christmas
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Reviews on Friday, January 02, 2009
Christmas (II)
George Herbert
The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?
My soul’s a shepherd too; a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
The pasture is Thy word: the streams, Thy grace
Enriching all the place.
Shepherd and flock shall sing,
and all my powers Outsing the daylight hours.
Then will we chide the sun for letting night
Take up his place and right:
We sing one common Lord;
wherefore he should Himself the candle hold.
I will go searching, till I find a sun
Shall stay, till we have done;
A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-nipped suns look sadly.
Then will we sing, and shine all our own day,
And one another pay:
His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till ev’n His beams sing, and my music shine.
The 8th Day of Christmas
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Reviews on Thursday, January 01, 2009
As Dew In Aprille
Anonymous
I sing of a maiden
That is makeles:
King of all kings
To her son she ches.
He came al so stille
There his moder was,
As dew in Aprille
That falleth on the grass.
He came al so stille
To his moder’s bour,
As dew in Aprille
That falleth on the flour.
He came al so stille
There his moder lay,
As dew in Aprille
That falleth on the spray.
Moder and maiden
Was never none but she:
Well may such a lady
Goddes moder be.
Image by anonymous Japanese Carmelite
The 7th Day of Christmas
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Reviews on Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The Holy Night
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;
The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,
Softened their horn’d faces,
To almost human gazes
Toward the newly Born:
The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks
Brought visionary looks,
As yet in their astonished hearing rung
The strange sweet angel-tongue:
The magi of the East, in sandals worn,
Knelt reverent, sweeping round,
With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground,
The incense, myrrh, and gold
These baby hands were impotent to hold:
So let all earthlies and celestials wait
Upon thy royal state.
Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!
Image: Ignacio Moquino, 1944
The 6th Day of Christmas
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Reviews on Tuesday, December 30, 2008
A Christmas Carol
G.K. Chesterton
The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O, weary, weary is the world,
But here is all aright.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary’s breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O, stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary’s heart
His hair was like a fire.
(O, weary, weary is the world
But here the world’s desire.)
The Christ-child stood at Mary’s knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.
image from Masterpiece studios
The 5th Day of Christmas
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Reviews on Monday, December 29, 2008
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.
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... READ MORE
The 4th Day of Christmas
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Reviews on Sunday, December 28, 2008
Cradle Song
Traditional, new verses by Rev. Christopher Phillips, 1995
Away in a manger, no crib for his bed,
the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head.
The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay,
the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.
Dear Mary, his Mother, sang sweet lullabies,
as Jesus, awaking, gazed into her eyes.
The most holy Virgin, with loving caress
embraced the world’s Saviour with Love’s tenderness.
Good Joseph stood guarding the Mother and Child,
his soul filled with awe and his heart undefiled.
The birth of young Jesus made angels to sing,
but Joseph in silence kept watch o’er his King.
What once was a stable may our hearts become;
may God’s holy fam’ly in us find a home.
With Mary and Joseph and angels above
we worship the Infant, the gift of God’s Love.
The 3rd Day of Christmas
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Reviews on Saturday, December 27, 2008
Gloria in Profundis
G.K. Chesterton
There has fallen on earth for a token
A god too great for the sky.
He has burst out of all things and broken
The bounds of eternity:
Into time and the terminal land
He has strayed like a thief or a lover,
For the wine of the world brims over,
Its splendour is split on the sand.
Who is proud when the heavens are humble,
Who mounts if the mountains fall,
If the fixed... READ MORE
