{"id":108388,"date":"2024-12-24T12:06:18","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T19:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=108388"},"modified":"2024-12-24T12:25:16","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T19:25:16","slug":"glad-is-the-world-and-fair-this-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/12\/glad-is-the-world-and-fair-this-night.html","title":{"rendered":"“Glad is the world and fair this night”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The twelfth-century St Enodoc\u2019s Church, Trebetheric, Cornwall, where Sir John Betjeman is buried. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I think it\u2019s time to share another of my favorite Christmas poems. \u00a0Curiously, the poem is titled \u201cChristmas.\u201d \u00a0It was written by Sir John Betjeman (b. 1906), who was British poet laureate from 1972 until his death in 1984:<\/p>\n

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
\nThe Tortoise stove is lit again
\nAnd lamp-oil light across the night
\nHas caught the streaks of winter rain
\nIn many a stained-glass window sheen
\nFrom Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.<\/p>\n

The holly in the windy hedge
\nAnd round the Manor House the yew
\nWill soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
\nThe altar, font and arch and pew,
\nSo that the villagers can say
\n\u2018The church looks nice\u2019 on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
\nCorporation tramcars clang,
\nOn lighted tenements I gaze,
\nWhere paper decorations hang,
\nAnd bunting in the red Town Hall
\nSays \u2018Merry Christmas to you all\u2019.<\/p>\n

And London shops on Christmas Eve
\nAre strung with silver bells and flowers
\nAs hurrying clerks the City leave
\nTo pigeon-haunted classic towers,
\nAnd marbled clouds go scudding by
\nThe many-steepled London sky.<\/p>\n

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
\nAnd oafish louts remember Mum,
\nAnd sleepless children\u2019s hearts are glad.
\nAnd Christmas-morning bells say \u2018Come!\u2019
\nEven to shining ones who dwell
\nSafe in the Dorchester Hotel.<\/p>\n

And is it true?\u00a0 And is it true,
\nThis most tremendous tale of all,
\nSeen in a stained-glass window\u2019s hue,
\nA Baby in an ox\u2019s stall ?
\nThe Maker of the stars and sea
\nBecome a Child on earth for me ?<\/p>\n

And is it true ?\u00a0 For if it is,
\nNo loving fingers tying strings
\nAround those tissued fripperies,
\nThe sweet and silly Christmas things,
\nBath salts and inexpensive scent
\nAnd hideous tie so kindly meant,<\/p>\n

No love that in a family dwells,
\nNo carolling in frosty air,
\nNor all the steeple-shaking bells
\nCan with this single Truth compare \u2013
\nThat God was man in Palestine
\nAnd lives today in Bread and Wine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Hopperstad Stave Church, in Vik, Norway, was constructed around AD 1130. \u00a0Lingering Viking influence appears, among other places, in the dragons that decorate its roof.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And, just yesterday, in a Facebook post from someone named Neal Fant, I came across another interesting poem. \u00a0It was written by one J. R. R. Tolkien nearly a century ago, before he had written The Hobbit<\/em>. \u00a0Surprisingly, the poem was discovered only in 2013, by a pair of Tolkien scholars named Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull. \u00a0While examining a 1936 edition of the Catholic journal The Tablet<\/em>, they came across mention of two Tolkien poems that had been published in the Abingdon Annual<\/em> of Our Lady\u2019s School, a Roman Catholic institution that is still located in Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England. \u00a0Officials at the school helped them to locate the Annual,<\/em> which was, by then, nearly eighty years old.<\/p>\n

As Mr. Fant puts it, although \u201cNoel\u201d was written in 1936, it \u201cfeels like it was written during the days of old for reading in one of the old Norse stave churches.\u201d \u00a0Such a perception is not altogether unexpected, given Professor Tolkien\u2019s academic focus a leading scholar of Anglo-Saxon and northern medieval literature:<\/p>\n

Grim was the world and grey last night:
\nThe moon and stars were fled,
\nThe hall was dark without song or light,
\nThe fires were fallen dead.
\nThe wind in the trees was like to the sea,
\nAnd over the mountains\u2019 teeth
\nIt whistled bitter-cold and free,
\nAs a sword leapt from its sheath.<\/p>\n

The lord of snows upreared his head;
\nHis mantle long and pale
\nUpon the bitter blast was spread
\nAnd hung o\u2019er hill and dale.
\nThe world was blind,
\nthe boughs were bent,
\nAll ways and paths were wild:
\nThen the veil of cloud apart was rent,
\nAnd here was born a Child.<\/p>\n

The ancient dome of heaven sheer
\nWas pricked with distant light;
\nA star came shining white and clear
\nAlone above the night.
\nIn the dale of dark in that hour of birth
\nOne voice on a sudden sang:
\nThen all the bells in Heaven and Earth
\nTogether at midnight rang.<\/p>\n

Mary sang in this world below:
\nThey heard her song arise
\nO\u2019er mist and over mountain snow
\nTo the walls of Paradise,
\nAnd the tongue of many bells was stirred
\nin Heaven\u2019s towers to ring
\nWhen the voice of mortal maid was heard,
\nThat was mother of Heaven\u2019s King.<\/p>\n

Glad is the world and fair this night
\nWith stars about its head,
\nAnd the hall is filled with laughter and light,
\nAnd fires are burning red.
\nThe bells of Paradise now ring
\nWith bells of Christendom,
\nAnd Gloria, Gloria we will sing
\nThat God on earth is come.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"poiouaigynlksnal\"<\/a>
The ruins of Coventry Cathedral \u2014 the Cathedral Church of St. Michael \u2014 after a rainstorm in a Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph. The fourteenth-century Gothic church was destroyed on 14 November 1940 by the German Luftwaffe. The new cathedral was consecrated in May 1962, and is very partially visible to the left. Benjamin Britten\u2019s \u201cWar Requiem\u201d was written for the occasion.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

Here\u2019s a fun little piece for the Winter Solstice holiday: \u00a0\u201cA Rabbi Ranks All the Great Christmas Songs Written By Jews: From \u2018Let It Snow\u2019 to \u2018Rudolph\u2019 to \u2018Santa Baby.\u2019\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid, though, that it\u2019s just a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. \u00a0Because now \u2014 brace yourself for the horror to come! \u2014 it\u2019s time for yet another selection of Christmas music that I\u2019ve drawn from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122. \u00a0This is the so-called \u201cCoventry Carol,\u201d performed by the Columbine Chorale in its original 1591 version<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child
\nBye bye, lully, lullay
\nO sisters too, how may we do
\nFor to preserve this day
\nThis poor youngling for whom we do sing
\n\u201cBye bye, lully, lullay?\u201d
\nHerod the king, in his raging
\nCharg\u00e8d he hath this day
\nHis men of might in his own sight
\nAll young children to slay
\nThat woe is me, poor child, for thee
\nAnd ever mourn and may
\nFor thy parting neither say nor sing
\n\u201cBye bye, lully, lullay.\u201d
\nLully, lullay, thou little tiny child
\nBye bye, lully, lullay<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Merry Christmas to all!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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