"A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices..."
Happy whatever day of Christmas this is! On reading Isaiah and Titus at Mass to the masses. Poetry by Hardy, Rossetti and Merrill. Contemplating trees and carols.
For a child is born to us, a son is given us;
upon his shoulder dominion rests.
They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero,
Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9: 5
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! We are knee deep into the days of both celebration seasons, aren’t we? At the moment my Jewish father-in-law (and new subscriber) is visiting, and so we have a menorah out with our advent wreath. Prior to Christmas my schedule was thrown off by various family members being sick, including myself. I am better now, but three of my children were unable to go to church on Christmas Eve. I would have loved for all of us to be together since I was the scheduled lector and my oldest daughter was the videographer for the livestream. (For those who are truly curious, this is where you can find a recording of the 4pm Mass. I’m the lady in green.) Alas, only #3 and #5 could join me at 4pm. My husband went separately to the later 8pm Mass.
The readings for the night were from Isaiah 9:1-6 and Titus 2: 11-14. I wonder how many people picked up on the fact that the Titus selection was just one sentence.
Beloved:
The grace of God has appeared, saving all
and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires
and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age,
as we await the blessed hope,
the appearance of the glory of our great God
and savior Jesus Christ,
who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness
and to cleanse for himself a people as his own,
eager to do what is good. (Titus 2: 11-14)
I love being a lector. It is like doing a reading but with a much better author. I often use scansion marks in the lector workbook so I understand the cadence and the rhythm of the words. There is so much poetry in the Bible.
Speaking of poetry, a number of my smart friends have been talking about the same Christmas poems over the past few weeks.
from and from both took a look at Thomas Hardy’s “The Oxen”:“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.Victoria doesn’t delve too much into this poem, but she’s written deeply on many other things regarding poetry, translation, culture, and obviously Horace. I hope you’ll take a look at her work. At Poems Ancient and Modern, I find Jody’s explications are always worthwhile.
… “The Oxen” remains one his best-known poems — and it is replete with the late Victorian/Edwardian sense of ambivalence about, and nostalgia for, a time when acceptance of faith seemed easier. A time when the world was thick with magic, and doubts were decided by a trust in the possibility of miracles.
“The Oxen” was published in 1915, on Christmas Eve. Hardy was a writer who straddled the Victorian and Edwardian periods, a time marked with controversy as Charles Darwin’s publication of “On the Origin of Species” in 1859 brought into question how the world was created. However, Hardy’s speaker still goes into the darkness with hope of seeing kneeling oxen.
Also this past week,
from and from both tackled “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Christina Rosetti. (A couple of weeks ago also recorded an episode about this poem.)“In the Bleak Midwinter” by Christina Rossetti
In the bleak midwinter, 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 midwinter, 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 midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, 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 I can I give Him: give my heart.Perhaps this is too sentimental for some readers, but I love the earnestness of the voice. I hear humility and gratitude in the last stanza. Of course, it makes for a beautiful hymn1:
Both of the poems by Hardy and Rossetti are classic Christmas poems; however, it is a more contemporary poem, “The Christmas Tree” by James Merrill, which I have been thinking about the most. My friends Sean Johnson at The Daily Poem and
on the podcast chose this for their respective shows.
“Christmas Tree” is a shape poem; however, neither host mentions the fact that this poem has been printed in two different shapes. A couple of years ago Kamran Javadizadeh wrote about the background on how the shape came to be on his Substack,
, where you can see Merrill’s poem as it was formatted in Poetry and how it was printed later, closer to the poet’s intent.The Christmas tree as seen from another room, the viewer at some distance, some oblique angle, from the ritual it organizes. As Lanny explains in our conversation, if a Christmas tree is a symbol for a certain normative ideal of the nuclear family, then that is a scene from which the childless, queer Merrill might have felt at least partially alienated. If the tree is a sign of life, then how poignant that its green can only be glimpsed, by the sick and dying poet, from the next room. When J. D. McClatchy and Stephen Yenser published “Christmas Tree” in Merrill’s Collected Poems (Knopf, 2001), they restored its shape to Merrill’s vision.
I have friends who insist that poems should stand on their own, without biographical context, but I think it would be impossible to fully understand this poem’s meaning if we did not know that Merrill was very close to dying of AIDS when he wrote “Christmas Tree”. I am not sure I agree with the tree being a symbol of the nuclear family, but I do believe it is a strong metaphor.
I’ve been thinking about “Christmas Tree” in relation to “The Oxen” and “In the Bleak Midwinter” and my eyes rest at the bottom of Merrill’s tree:
No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today’s
Dusk room aglow
For the last time
With candlelight.
Faces love-lit
Gifts underfoot.
Still to be so poised, so
Receptive. Still to recall, praise.Christians celebrate the beginning of an innocent life that we know will be cut down — tortured and sacrificed for the sake of others. Christ came into this world, accepting this. No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning.
The speaker of Rosetti’s poem is a believer and would be the type to take Hardy’s doubting speaker to see kneeling oxen. But what of Merrill’s speaker? This isn’t a poem about religious faith. As poignant as it is, this seems to be the opposite of a metaphysical poem; it takes a symbol of the everlasting and brings it down, rooting it firmly into the earth, giving us a horizon view of the world with no attempt to reach the heavens. We live, we love, we die. The end.
But the last line: Still to recall, praise.
This word choice seems to be a nod upward. But what does the speaker praise? Praise is a word that comes from the Latin pretium which means price. In this sense, to praise something means that we acknowledge its value — as in the word appraise. However, the praise that Catholics understand in the Latin Mass stems from laudere, which means to laud or glorify — as in to praise God, not man. Praise as in the second chapter of Luke:
And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, even as it was spoken unto them.2
Christ is in the title of Merrill’s poem and so is the word tree, often a symbol of the cross. Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? as the Easter hymn goes. It is hard to disentangle the poem’s meaning from a Christian religious lineage. Yet, it seems that this tree (meaning, the poem, as evoked by its shape) exists to remind its readers of Merrill, to recall him and remember his value — not Christ’s value. I am sure this poem is a comfort to those who knew and loved the poet, and I truly admire this poem for what it does. However, what does it mean to a Christian reader when Christ becomes a metaphorical device — and not the meaning itself?
Dorothy Sayers, the Anglican writer, outlined the story of Jesus quite succinctly, that His is “the tale of the time when God was the under-dog and got beaten, when He submitted to the conditions He had laid down and became a man like the men He had made, and the men He had made broke Him and killed Him.” Jesus was stripped, humiliated, and marched through the streets to his crucifixion. In the branches of Merrill’s tree one can see the prophecy:
Yes, yes, what lay ahead Was clear: the stripping, the cold street, my chemicals Plowed back into the Earth for lives to come — No doubt a blessing, a harvest, but one that doesn't bear, Now or ever, dwelling upon.
Here lies the difference. The tree knows it will be plowed back to the Earth, but that is not what happens to Christ. Jesus is laid in the tomb but cannot be committed to the earth. He rises. In whatever way the tree is meant to bless others is “one that doesn’t bear,/ Now or ever, dwelling upon.” However, Christians know the reason why evergreen trees are brought into houses is, indeed, to dwell upon them — to think of the yearly celebration of Christmas that unwinds history for us, brings us back to the beginning of Luke’s Gospel.
I am reminded of the English lyrics to “O Holy Night”:3
O holy night! The stars are brightly shining; It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn! Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices! O night divine, O night when Christ was born! O night, O holy night, O night divine!
In this translation by John Sullivan Dwight, we live on an earth in a state of fallenness. It is with the birth of Christ that we feel that last line of Merrill’s poem: Still to recall, praise.
We feel this thrill of hope.
The weary world rejoices because we are seen for what we are worth, for our human dignity, no matter who we are or how we lived our lives. We are in sin and error pining, and Jesus, despite all that will happen, was still born to redeem us. In a stable no less — but this was Enough for Him, whom angels fall before, / The ox and ass and camel which adore.
Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!
Peuple à genoux, attends ta délivrance!
We live in a time when fewer people would fall on their knees, much less believe that oxen would do as well. It would seem that Hardy’s speaker lacked firm belief, but still went into the gloom, hoping it might be so.
As I read Isaiah on Christmas Eve:
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom
a light has shone.
You have brought them abundant joy
and great rejoicing… (Isaiah 9: 2)
And as the priest read the Gospel a few moments later,
The angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid;
for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people.
For today in the city of David
a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.
And this will be a sign for you:
you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2: 10-11)
The lit Christmas tree in James Merrill’s poem is a symbol for the light in the darkness. The end beginning. The end of life, the dying of the year, the gloom of Hardy’s poem. The beginning is the light of a new world, a world reborn with Christ.
Receptive. Still to recall, praise.
Christ, who was nailed to the tree, received us, despite our unworthiness. We are meant to recall His story, to remember what is meaningful to us, what we value. It is only then that we can praise.
“Christmas Tree” is not so much just about the death of one poet as it is about the deaths of all of us. We are not just fallen in our spiritual natures but also in our corporeal natures. Yet, this is what gives us meaning, and what makes our lives precious. As Christmas poems they are works bound to a season which means they invite revisiting as winter returns year after year. All truly good poems are transformative; after reading the poem the person is different than who they were before they had done so — thus they are changed by the discovery of something new they learn about themselves and the world around them. That is how I feel about these three poems — “The Oxen”, “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “Christmas Tree” — that by reading them I know something more about the three virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love, the three theological virtues. I hope that by sharing these poems that you see the gifts lit by the light of the poetic language. I hope you hear the music and that it calls you to sing, to recall, praise.
May you all have a blessed holiday season!
Pax et Bonum — Zina
I found this note on the channel particularly moving:
Our recording of Holst's 'In the bleak midwinter' is released as a single, with all proceeds donated to Cancer Research UK. Please visit https://lnk.to/InTheBleak and download the track to support this cause which is particularly close to our hearts. Tenebrae's Director, Nigel Short, received a cancer diagnosis and underwent major surgery in 2022. He says: “I was unexpectedly diagnosed with bowel cancer, which was a real shock for me, my family and everyone around us. The NHS responded quickly, getting me in for a successful operation within a few weeks of my diagnosis, and I’m pleased and relieved to say that I’m now officially in remission. We wanted to do something to support the amazing work that Cancer Research UK does to support everyone affected by cancer. Christmas can be a particularly difficult time for those who are fighting the disease themselves, and for those who have recently lost a loved one or are caring for friends and family. All proceeds from downloads of 'In the bleak midwinter' will be donated to Cancer Research UK. Please consider downloading it today to support the vital work that this wonderful charity does every day of the year.”
Luke 2: 20 (ASV)
If you know French, it is interesting to note the liberties taken in the translation of the original hymn, "Cantique de Noël" by Placide Cappeau (1847).
Minuit! Chrétiens, c'est l'heure solennelle
Où l'homme Dieu descendit jusqu'à nous,
Pour effacer la tache originelle
Et de son père arrêter le courroux:
Le monde entier tressaille d'espérance
A cette nuit qui lui donne un sauveur
Peuple à genoux, attends ta délivrance
Noël! Noël! Voici le Rédempteur!
Noël! Noël! Voici le Rédempteur!
Such a lovely meditation. I'll admit that lines like "fall on your knees" jostle me rather forcibly out of the Christmas dream, but there is a lot of lovely music surrounding the holiday. I enjoy the decorations, Christmas cookie exchanges, and the ritual of selecting and cutting our own family tree. For me the meaning of the season sits squarely in family time. I'm grateful for a stretch of color and joy during the darkest part of the year.
Always lovely to go back to Hardy's poetry. Thank you, Zina!