Christmas Poetry

Christmas, they say, comes but once a year. In these days it seems to also last for much of that year.For the religious amongst us this annual celebration of the Birth of Christ must seem bitter sweet; it's acknowledgment by billions of people countered by the pervasive spread of material possessions translating the event to little more than a sales pitch for their own wares. Most religions celebrate their founders but Christianity seems somehow to have lost possession of one of its key rituals in an ever more secular West. The spread of globalisation seems to have hindered rather than helped the true meaning of the festival. Children today are much more interested in what presents they might receive than any spiritual message. As parents too, most of us buy into this and we seem to indulge our offspring rather than the themes and aims of the festival's meaning common to us all. In this collection we rely on the words and wisdom of such fine poets as John Milton, Emily Dickinson, Sir Walter Scott, Daniel Sheehan, Wordsworth, Longfellow and a whole host of others to absorb us in a Christmas time of hope and togetherness set amongst a landscape of winter wonderment and Nature's palest palette. The experiences and memories they share with us speak of a time, of a world that did have a common purpose and an ambition to share good fortune with everyone. - 1 - Christmas Poetry - An Introroduction2 - On the Morning of Christs Nativity by John Milton3 - Nativity by John Donne4 - Carol by Ben Jonson5 - A Christmas Carol by Samual Taylor Coleridge6 - The Nativity by Henry Vaughan7 - An Ode of the Birth of Our Saviour by Robert Herrick8 - New Prince New Pomp by Robert Southwell9 - A Christmas Carol by Aubrey De Vere10 - The Nativity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Christopher Smart11 - The Three Kings by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow12 - A Christmas Carol by G K Chesterton13 - The Beautiful Mother by Jacopone da Todi14 - Upon Christ His Birth by Sir John Suckling15 - No Mercy Here by Daniel Sheehan16 - A Nativity by Rudyard Kipling17 - God Rest by Daniel Sheehan18 - The Oxen by Thomas Hardy19 - A Visit From St Nicholas ('Twas The Night Before Christmas) by Clement Moore20 - Old Christmastide (An Extract) by Sir Walter Scott21 - Christmas Eve by Christina Rossetti22 - The Snow Storm by Ralph Waldo Emerson23 - The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens24 - The First Snowfall by James Russell Lowell25 - The White Snow by Guillaume Apollinaire26 - Christmas Bells by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow27 - Ring Out Wild Bells. Christmas Poem by Alfred lord Tennyson28 - Minstrels. A Christmas Poem by William Wordsworth29 - As Sleigh Bells Seem In Summer by Emily Dickinson30 - Christmas At Sea by Robert Louis Stevenson31 - The House of Christmas by G K Chesterton32 - The Burning Babe by Robert Southwell33 - Winter Sunset by Katharine Tynan34 - Joseph by G K Chesterton35 - Winter Evening Hymn To My Fire by James Russell Lowell36 - In The Bleak Midwinter by Christina Georgina Rossetti37 - The Farm Woman's Winter by Thomas Hardy38 - The Savior Must Have Been A Docile Gentleman by Emily Dickinson39 - Winter by Robert Louis Stevenson40 - Christmas Carol by Sara Teasdale41 - Winter Heavens by George Meredith42 - The Mahogany Tree by William Makepeace Thackeray43 - Christmas Fancies by Ella Wheeler Wilcox44 - The Masque of Christmas by Ben Jonson45 - Christmas For Atheists by Daniel Sheehan46 - Christmas Poem by Robert Herrick47 - December Sales Drive by Daniel Sheehan48 - The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy49 - The Mother of God by William Butler Yeats50 - A Christmas Ghost Story by Thomas Hardy51 - A New Years Eve in Wartime by Thomas Hardy52 - Ghosts of the Old Year by James Weldon Johnson53 - 'Twas Just This Time Last Year I Died by Emily Dickinson54 - The Meeting by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow55 - The Old Year by John Clare56 - The Death of the Old Year by Alfred Lord Tennyson57 - At the Entering of the New Year by Thomas Hardy58 - Auld Lang Syne by Robert Burns