Summer Eden Poetry Center: holiday poems

Showing posts with label holiday poems. Show all posts

Monday, August 26, 2024

Coming in September - Haiku for the Midnight Hour

(Created on Canva by Dawn Pisturino)

Coming to Amazon in September in paperback and Ebook - Haiku for the Midnight Hour, my Halloween collection of haiku!

Dawn Pisturino

Friday, December 23, 2022

Christmas Poems by Christina Rossetti

Christmas Eve

Christmas hath a darkness

Brighter than the blazing noon,

Christmas hath a chillness

Warmer than the heat of June,

Christmas hath a beauty

Lovelier than the world can show:

For Christmas bringeth Jesus,

Brought for us so low.

Earth, strike up your music,

Birds that sing and bells that ring;

Heaven hath answering music

For all Angels soon to sing:

Earth, put on your whitest

Bridal robe of spotless snow:

For Christmas bringeth Jesus,

Brought for us so low.

~Christina Rossetti~

1893

A Christmas Carol

(Set to music as "In the Bleak Mid-winter)

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 mid-winter

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 and archangels

May have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim

Thronged the air;

But only His mother

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 a lamb,

If I were a Wise Man

I would do my part,--

Yet what can I give Him,

Give my heart.

~Christina Rossetti~

BIO: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) came from a family of talented poets, writers, and painters. Her father, Gabriele Rossetti, emigrated to England as a poet and political exile from Vasto, Abruzzo, Italy. Her mother, Frances Polidori, was the sister of the notorious Lord Byron physician, John William Polidori. Her brother was the renowned poet and painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Christina often posed for her brother's paintings and became a popular poetess in her own right. In popularity, she became the successor of Elizabeth Barrett Browning after the famous poetess died in 1861. Christina published her first collection of poems in 1862, Goblin Market and Other Poems, which remains popular even today. Two of her poems were set to music: A Christmas Carol and Love Came Down at Christmas. She is buried in London's Highgate Cemetery.

Saturday, March 5, 2016

The Fairies - William Allingham

Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren't go a-hunting

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl's feather!

Down along the rocky shore

Some make their home,

They live on crispy pancakes

Of yellow tide-foam;

Some in the reeds

Of the black mountain-lake,

With frogs for their watch-dogs,

All night awake.

High on the hill-top

The old King sits;

He is now so old and gray

He's nigh lost his wits.

With a bridge of white mist

Columbkill he crosses,

On his stately journeys

From Slieveleague to Rosses;

Or going up with music

On cold starry nights,

To sup with the Queen

Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget

For seven years long;

When she came down again

Her friends were all gone.

They took her lightly back,

Between the night and morrow,

They thought that she was fast asleep,

But she was dead with sorrow.

They have kept her ever since

Deep within the lake,

On a bed of flag-leaves,

Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side,

Through the mosses bare,

They have planted thorn-trees

For pleasure here and there.

Is any man so daring

As dig them up in spite,

He shall find their sharpest thorns

In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren't go a-hunting

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl's feather!

William Allingham (1824 - 1889) was a popular Irish poet during the Victorian Era whose poem "The Fairies" became a childhood classic.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Friday, December 5, 2014

Yuletide Joy

THE OXEN

by 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 Eve,

"Come; see the oxen kneel!

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know."

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

CHRISTMAS SONG

(Traditional)

The trees are all bare not a leaf to be seen

And the meadows their beauty have lost.

Now winter has come and 'tis cold for man and beast,

And the streams they are,

And the streams they are all fast bound down with frost.

'Twas down in the farmyard where the oxen feed on straw,

They send forth their breath like steam.

Sweet Betsy the milkmaid now quickly she must go,

For flakes of ice she finds,

For flakes of ice she finds a-floating on her cream.

'Tis now all the small birds to the barn-door fly for food

And gently they rest on the spray.

A-down the plantation the hares do search for food,

And lift their footsteps sure,

Lift their footsteps sure for fear they do betray.

Now Christmas is come and our song is almost done

For we soon shall have the turn of the year.

So fill up your glasses and let your health go round,

For I wish you all,

For I wish you all a joyful New Year.

THE YULE DAYS

(Traditional)

The king sent his lady on the first Yule day,

A papingo-aye;