My friend Mary Jo gave me a beautiful book of Christmas poems, and I’d love to share three of them this morning. Whatever else the day holds for you, I hope you find a moment of peace and stillness in your heart.

The Magi
~William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)

Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

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The Oxen
~Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928)

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.

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From Rorate Celi Desuper
~William Dunbar (c.1460 – c.1515)

Rorate celi desuper! (1)
Ye Heavens distil your balmy shouris
For now is risen the bright day star
Fae the rose Mary, flour of flouris;
The clear Son, whom no cloud devouris,
Surmounting Phoebus in the east,
Is comen of his heavenly touris;
Et nobis Puer Natus est (2)

Celestial fowlis in the air
Sing wi’ your notis upon hight
In firthis and in Forestis fair
Be mirthful now, at all your might
For passit is your dully night;
Aurora has the cloudis pierc’d,
The sun is risen with gladsome light,
Et nobis Puer Natus est

Sing heaven imperial, most of hight
Regions of air mak harmony;
A’ fish in flood and fowl of flight
Be mirthful and mak melody:
All Gloria In Excelsis cry,
Heaven, erd, sea, man, bird, and beast,
He that is crownit abune the sky
Pro nobis Puer Natus est

 

(1) Drop down ye heavens from above
(2) Unto us a son is born

shouris ~ showers
Fae ~ from
flour ~ flower
touris ~ towers
firthis ~ firths
A’ ~ all
erd ~ earth
abune ~ above

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Coming soon: Top 10 Cozy Reads for Winter, to be published at Styleblueprint on December 29.

Coming even sooner:

In my immediate future. What’s in yours?!

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