Christmas / W.H. Davies

Christmas

Christmas has come, let's eat and drink —
This is no time to sit and think;
Farewell to study, books and pen,
And welcome to all kinds of men.
Let all men now get rid of care,
And what one has let others share;
Then 'tis the same, no matter which
Of us is poor, or which is rich.
Let each man have enough this day,
Since those that can are glad to pay;
There's nothing now too rich or good
For poor men, not the King's own food.
Now like a singing bird my feet
Touch earth, and I must drink and eat.
Welcome to all men: I'll not care
What any of my fellows wear;
We'll not let cloth divide our souls,
They'll swim stark naked in the bowls.
Welcome, poor beggar: I'll not see
That hand of yours dislodge a flea,—
While you sit at my side and beg,
Or right foot scratching your left leg.
Farewell restraint: we will not now
Measure the ale our brains allow,
But drink as much as we can hold.
We'll count no change when we spend gold;
This is no time to save, but spend,
To give for nothing, not to lend.
Let foes make friends: let them forget
The mischief-making dead that fret
The living with complaint like this —
"He wronged us once, hate him and his."
Christmas has come; let every man
Eat, drink, be merry all he can.
Ale's my best mark, but if port wine
Or whisky's yours — let it be mine;
No matter what lies in the bowls,
We'll make it rich with our own souls.
Farewell to study, books and pen,
And welcome to all kinds of men.

~~
W.H. Davies (1871-1940)
from Foliage: Various poems, 1915 

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

W.H. Davies biography

"Christmas" read for LibriVox.org. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

December Finds Himself Again a Child / Nicholas Gordon

AI Illustration, courtesy

Poems for Free

December Finds Himself Again a Child

December finds himself again a child
Even as he undergoes his age.
Cold and early darkness now descend,
Embracing sanctuaries of delight.
More and more he stares into the night,
Becoming less and less concerned with ends,
Emblem of the innocent as sage
Restored to wonder by what he must yield.

~~
Nicholas Gordon
from Poems for Free, 2025

[Copyright by Nicholas Gordon - free for personal or non-commercial use]

Nicholas Gordon biography 

 "December Finds Himself Again a Child" read by Nicholas Gordon, music by Wayne Jones. 

Courtesy Poems for Free.

December / Mary E. Blake

December

Chill the night wind moans and sighs,
On the sward the stubble dies;
Slow across the meadows rank
Float the cloud-rifts grim and dank; 

 On the hill-side, bare and brown, 

Twilight shadows gather down, —
                'Tis December.

Stark and gaunt the naked trees
Wrestle with the wrestling breeze,
While beneath, at every breath,
Dead leaves hold a dance of death;
But the pine-trees' sighing grace
Greenly decks the barren place,
                In December.

Chirp of bird nor hum of bee
Breaks across the barren lea;
Only silence, cold and drear,
Nestles closely far and near,
While in cloak of russet gray,
Nature hides her bloom away
                With December.

Yet we know that, sleeping sound,
Life is waiting underground;
Till beneath his April skies
God shall bid it once more rise,
Warmth and light and beauty rest
Hushed and calm, upon the breast
                Of December.

So, though sometimes winter skies
Hide the summer from our eyes,
Taking from its old time place
Some dear form of love and grace,
We can wait, content to bear
Barren fields and frosted air,
                Through December —

We can wait, till some sweet dawn
Finds the shadows backward drawn,
And beneath its rosy light
Maytime flushes, warm and bright,
Bring again the bloom that fled
When the earth lay cold and dead
                In December.

~~
Mary E. Blake (1840-1907)
from Poems, 1882 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Mary E. Blake biography

Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Winter Night (circa 1900 (detail). Wikimedia Commons.

A Winter Elegy / Charles Lotin Hildreth

A Winter Elegy

Rob Farrow, Netley Abbey -

Western flank wall, 2023 (detail),

 CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

The summer's wreath is withered on the plain,
    And autumn's graver garb of dusky gold
Lies strewn in sombre glen and silent lane,
    And winter, like a palmer sable-stoled,
Watches with cold, unsympathetic eyes
The dying year's faint, final agonies.

Ay, summer is no more; afar I hear
    A heavy sigh and sound among the leaves
As of the feet of those who bear a bier
    With wailing voices; 'tis the wind that grieves,
Seeking through lone dim vales and woodlands dun,
The bright, departed children of the sun.

And I, too, seek in places well-remembered,
    Some lingering token of the vanished hours;
But round me lie, all desolate and dismembered,
    The green, mid-forest glades and vine-roofed bowers,
Where peace, like a sweet presence, held her sway;
Nothing remains but ruin and decay.

I loiter by the ivy-mantled wall
    Where cling the shattered nests upon the bough,
To hear one faint and farewell echo fall
    Of all the music that is silent now;
In vain! the sere grass shivers on the hill,
The rushes moan beside the frozen rill.

I feel like one in lonely age returning
    To seek repose in haunts of happier years,
Who stands and gazes round him, vainly yearning
    For one dear landmark that his memory bears,
Till from his revery by some rude hand shaken,
He starts and wakes and finds himself forsaken.

~~
Charles Lotin Hildreth (1853-1896)
from Through the Year with the Poets: December, 1885

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Charles Lotin Hildreth biography

Across a Wall / JD Shirk

Across a Wall

An autumn piled against a wall
Of ancient, rain washed, standing stones

There, stories of another's time
Were whispers carried on the wind

Beyond the wall, a winter waits
With dreams beyond the deepest sleep

Within those dreams, are timeless souls
In restful waiting, watching there

While years pass turning, slowly on
Until the winter turns to spring

And we, while summer still remains
Place stones in walls along our ways

Where others, when the autumn falls
Across our time washed, standing stones

Will hear in whispers on the wind
The stories of a time we knew

Before the sleep of winter's night
Wove dreams into slow turning years.

~~
JD Shirk, 2024

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

JD Shirk biography

Rob Farrow, Netley Abbey - Western flank wall, 2023 (detail), 

CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Reflections in Netley Abbey / Edward Hamley

Reflections in Netley Abbey

Alone, unseen, at this mild sober hour,
When fading Autumn with his season pale
Has ting'd the woods, I seek the ruin'd tow'r,
And mould'ring heaps, that spread the thorny dale.

Here sad reflection to the eye recalls
The spires commanding far the cheerful deeps,
The fretted pinnacles, and window'd walls,
Where now the melancholy ivy creeps.

The pond'ring stranger views with silent dread,
As to the stony cell he bends his way,
The broken roof suspended o'er his head,
Where mingling shafts and sculptur'd arms decay.

No hallow'd hymn now sounds, where wildly strown
With fragments rude the desert choir appears;
But echoing loud amid the cloysters lone
The daw's hoarse clamour meets my startled ears.

Void is the nich, where erst in holy state
Perhaps some Abbot's gorgeous image lay;
The slumb'ring brothers share their ruler's fate,
And not a stone records their useless day.

Alas! whate'er their virtues or their crimes,
'Tis all in blank oblivion buried deep;
Nor did they ween, how little future times
Would share their bliss, or for their sorrows weep.

For ev'n where droning Indolence repos'd,
Some finer souls might ache with keen distress;
And haply many a wretch full willing clos'd
His eyes, and shunn'd a life he could not bless.

Perchance some vot'ry sad of feeling heart,
As o'er the fading lawn he mus'd at eve,
Anxious might see the passing sail depart,
And call to mind a world he wept to leave.

Ev'n then some tender maid he lov'd too well,
And gave in thought th' endearing name of wife,
Might make his bleeding heart with sorrow swell,
And deeply rue his cold unsocial life;

Sad might he heave a deep-drawn sigh unseen,
And down his cheek a venial tear might fall,
To think how calm, how blest his days had been
With her, his bosom's joy, his life, his all.

The bell slow-beating thro' the gloom of night,
Might wake his soul to other thoughts than pray'r,
And, while his voice perform'd each solemn rite,
His wand'ring heart might own a tend'rer care.

So from his native woodlands torn away,
The little songster, conscious of his pain,
Sits dull and drooping all the livelong day,
And sings no more, or sings a sadder strain;

While from his joyless prison he surveys,
Flutt'ring with eager heart from side to side,
Earth's flow'ry mantle, and the budding sprays,
And hears in fancy still his long-lost bride.

~~
Edward Hamley (1764-1834)
from Poems of Various Kinds, 1795

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edward Hamley biography

Patrick Nasmyth (1787–1831), Netley Abbey. Wikimedia Commons.

December's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for December:

Christmas at Sea, by Robert Louis Stevenson 

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;

The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;

The wind was a nor'-wester, blowing squally off the sea;

And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

[...]

(sung by The Longest Johns)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-at-sea-robert-louis-stevenson_29.html