Not everyone celebrates Christmas but for most it is still a time of festivity. Here are a few poetic examples of the season through the eyes of various writers.
Though naturally Christmas, above all things, should be a celebration of the birth of Christ himself yet it has taken upon itself many different messages for different people over the years. For some those meanings are a private thing shared, at most with a few people, and for others it is something to be shared with the world.
Poets have often tried to express some of these Christmas messages over the years and have met with varying degrees of success. I would like to take this opportunity at this time to share a few of those poetic Christmas messages that I have uncovered in my trawls through the archives at OLDPOETRY www.oldpoetry.com the sister site to ALLPOETRY.
One of the earliest that I came across was written by Ben Jonson at a time when the strong Puritan influences in the British government were trying to remove all the festivity from the celebration in what we would today call a Killjoy fashion. Johnson wrote a playlet in 1616 about a person called Gregorie Christmas who was trying to enter the city of London with some of his family one December. In this extract he appeals to the powerful Lord Chamberlain to admit him http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/127400 That is the origin of the secular Father Christmas who should not be confused with Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus.
Saint Nicholas’ arrival on the scene was confirmed over 200 years later by a father’s poem to his children which is said to have been written on a sledge trip with his children to buy provisions (and gifts too, probably) just before Christmas in 1823. Although the real sleigh was probably pulled by a couple of horses the sleigh in the poem was pulled by 8 reindeer who most of you could probably name because this was the poem that is known worldwide as “The Night Before Christmas” and it introduced us all to the troop -- Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet!, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. It was written by Clement Clarke Moore and it’s proper name is A Visit From St. Nicholas http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/4533 However Moore also wrote a slightly less famous and less popular poem which described the different presents that Santeclaus (as he was termed then) would bring depending upon whether the little children had been good or bad http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/119776
The arrival of Rudolph on the scene had to wait over a hundred years more until 1939 when he appeared in a book by Robert Lewis May and (ten years later) in the famous song written by Johhny Marks (May’s brother in law) and sung by Gene Autrey. The singing Cowboy singing about a Red nosed Reindeer! Ho, Ho, Ho!
Meanwhile people were continuing to celebrate Christmas in different ways and under different conditions all over the world.
Cicely Fox Smith wrote a couple of poems about a sailor’s Christmas. One in which the Captain did his best to get his ship and crew back home in time http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/56195 and one when the ship and her crew were thousands of miles from home http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/45239 This latter poem is one of the very few that point out the many different types of weather one can expect at Christmas depending upon your location.
What many of us in the Northern Hemisphere forget is that Christmas is not necessarily a mid-Winter festival even if it did replace an older pagan one . A point emphasised by the Australian poet Victor James Daley in 1900 with this aptly named poem “Christmas In Australia” http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/24955
Another Australian, serving in France at the time, wrote a fairly accurate skit on a wartime Christmas in his poem http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/127480 sadly he died a year later.
I have said that Christmas is not a Winter Festival although it is inextricably linked as such in many minds so perhaps we should have a look at a couple of winter poems such as this one by Maude E Shenk http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/39967 or this one by the ever popular Scots Bard Robbie Burns http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/3485
Whatever the weather, whatever your religious faith I hope you have enjoyed this little trawl through the archives and I trust you have a pleasant break and a Happy New Year.
http://oldpoetry.com/column/show/130
Poets have often tried to express some of these Christmas messages over the years and have met with varying degrees of success. I would like to take this opportunity at this time to share a few of those poetic Christmas messages that I have uncovered in my trawls through the archives at OLDPOETRY www.oldpoetry.com the sister site to ALLPOETRY.
One of the earliest that I came across was written by Ben Jonson at a time when the strong Puritan influences in the British government were trying to remove all the festivity from the celebration in what we would today call a Killjoy fashion. Johnson wrote a playlet in 1616 about a person called Gregorie Christmas who was trying to enter the city of London with some of his family one December. In this extract he appeals to the powerful Lord Chamberlain to admit him http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/127400 That is the origin of the secular Father Christmas who should not be confused with Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus.
Saint Nicholas’ arrival on the scene was confirmed over 200 years later by a father’s poem to his children which is said to have been written on a sledge trip with his children to buy provisions (and gifts too, probably) just before Christmas in 1823. Although the real sleigh was probably pulled by a couple of horses the sleigh in the poem was pulled by 8 reindeer who most of you could probably name because this was the poem that is known worldwide as “The Night Before Christmas” and it introduced us all to the troop -- Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet!, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. It was written by Clement Clarke Moore and it’s proper name is A Visit From St. Nicholas http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/4533 However Moore also wrote a slightly less famous and less popular poem which described the different presents that Santeclaus (as he was termed then) would bring depending upon whether the little children had been good or bad http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/119776
The arrival of Rudolph on the scene had to wait over a hundred years more until 1939 when he appeared in a book by Robert Lewis May and (ten years later) in the famous song written by Johhny Marks (May’s brother in law) and sung by Gene Autrey. The singing Cowboy singing about a Red nosed Reindeer! Ho, Ho, Ho!
Meanwhile people were continuing to celebrate Christmas in different ways and under different conditions all over the world.
Cicely Fox Smith wrote a couple of poems about a sailor’s Christmas. One in which the Captain did his best to get his ship and crew back home in time http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/56195 and one when the ship and her crew were thousands of miles from home http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/45239 This latter poem is one of the very few that point out the many different types of weather one can expect at Christmas depending upon your location.
What many of us in the Northern Hemisphere forget is that Christmas is not necessarily a mid-Winter festival even if it did replace an older pagan one . A point emphasised by the Australian poet Victor James Daley in 1900 with this aptly named poem “Christmas In Australia” http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/24955
Another Australian, serving in France at the time, wrote a fairly accurate skit on a wartime Christmas in his poem http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/127480 sadly he died a year later.
I have said that Christmas is not a Winter Festival although it is inextricably linked as such in many minds so perhaps we should have a look at a couple of winter poems such as this one by Maude E Shenk http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/39967 or this one by the ever popular Scots Bard Robbie Burns http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/3485
Whatever the weather, whatever your religious faith I hope you have enjoyed this little trawl through the archives and I trust you have a pleasant break and a Happy New Year.
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