SONG FOR SUNDAY

This is not a photograph of the environment I am living in at the moment with temperatures in the high 30's - centigrade that is.

When I sing Christmas carols, the Australian ones don't quite do it for me.  Here's a beauty set in the bleak mid-winter by Christina Rossetti (1830 - 94).

Christina Rossetti, an English poet, was the daughter of a distinguished Italian political exile who became Professor of English at King's College, London.  Her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, more famous that she, was also a poet and a painter.  They lived in a time of high creativity in which the religious imagination often furnished material for artistic and literary works.  A devout High Anglican who engaged in many charitable works, Rossetti wrote a large number of poems, although she was a semi-invalid for much of her life.

The Nativity is the theme of the poem that follows.  Notice how vividly Rossetti sets the scene, a wintry setting worthy of an English Christmas.  She is intense and visionary, looking beyond the first Christmas to the Lord's second coming, 'when he comes to reign'.  Her contrasts are steep and wide, as they are in Mary's Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55).  Heaven and earth are always in tension;  riches and poverty, and God's triumphant power revealed in a small and humble space - these high contrasts of the Infancy Narratives become this poet's material as well.

Rossetti's intense spirituality most forceful in the last verse, which by itself stands as a wonderful prayer of Christmas celebration and joy.  (SPIRITUAL CLASSICS ed Richard Foster & Emilie Griffin)

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

In the bleak mid-winter

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 mid-winter

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 mid-winter

A stable-place sufficed

the Lord God Almighty

Jesus Christ.

Enough for him whom cherubim

Worship night and day,

A breastful of milk

And a mangerful of hay;

Enough for him whom angels

Fall down before,

The ox and ass and camel

Which adore.

Angels and archangles

May have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim

Thronged the air,

But only his mother 

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.

Photograph of my darling sister and you can find a beautiful rendition of the carol sung by Annie Lennox here