In the bleak mid-winterFrosty 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-winterLong ago.
Christmas
Classic Christmas readings
Readings for a carol service, a nativity, a school assembly or Christmas Eve at home. Christina Rossetti's In the Bleak Mid-Winter and Milton's Nativity hymn suit a church or candlelit service; Fred's defence of Christmas and Scrooge waking up on Christmas morning from A Christmas Carol work for a family or office reading. Little Women, Washington Irving and Longfellow's Christmas Bells give gentler, less religious choices. Most take one or two minutes to read aloud. Every passage is public domain and copied word for word from the original book.
How to use these
- For a carol service, pair one poem (Rossetti or Milton) with one prose reading (Dickens or Irving).
- Read slowly: a 100-word passage takes about 45 seconds aloud.
- Name the author and book before you start, for example “From A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens”.
What can I give Him,Poor as I am?If I were a shepherdI would bring a lamb,If I were a wise manI would do my part,—Yet what I can I give Him,Give my heart.
It was the Winter wilde,While the Heav’n-born-childe,All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;Nature in aw to himHad doff’t her gawdy trim,With her great Master so to sympathize:It was no season then for herTo wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour.
Whoso hears a chiming for Christmas at the nighest,Hears a sound like Angels chanting in their glee,Hears a sound like palm-boughs waving in the highest,Hears a sound like ripple of a crystal sea.
But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!
"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world."
I heard the bells on Christmas DayTheir old, familiar carols play,And wild and sweetThe words repeatOf peace on earth, good-will to men!
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThe Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1893 · Christmas Bells
Read the full text
Read the full text
The time draws near the birth of Christ:The moon is hid; the night is still;The Christmas bells from hill to hillAnswer each other in the mist.Four voices of four hamlets round,From far and near, on mead and moor,Swell out and fail, as if a doorWere shut between me and the sound:Each voice four changes on the wind,That now dilate, and now decrease,Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.
Some say that ever ’gainst that season comesWherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,The bird of dawning singeth all night long;And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm;So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.
Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment. The services of the Church about this season are extremely tender and inspiring. They dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its announcement. They gradually increase in fervor and pathos during the season of Advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good-will to men. I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ performing a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony.
Jo was the first to wake in the gray dawn of Christmas morning. No stockings hung at the fireplace, and for a moment she felt as much disappointed as she did long ago, when her little sock fell down because it was crammed so full of goodies. Then she remembered her mother’s promise and, slipping her hand under her pillow, drew out a little crimson-covered book.
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!
I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.
His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
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