Every now and again you come across one of those insufferable people who seem to be good at everything. Today, it’s Allie Esiri. She’s a British person with a good degree from some posh university, married to a merchant banker, published author, actor in TV dramas, popular guest on talk shows, etc. Her latest publication to hit the shelves (just in time for Christmas!) is Christmas Poems, following on from Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year and A Poet for Every Day of the Year.
Here is her list of the ten best Christmas poems:
1. Ring Out Wild Bells by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
2. Talking Turkey by Benjamin Zephaniah
3. A Visit from St Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore
4. The Oxen by Thomas Hardy
5. Christmas by John Betjeman
6. Christmas Carol by Paul L Dunbar
7. The Christmas Rose by Cecil Day Lewis
8. I Saw a Stable by Mary Coleridge
9. Journey of the Magi by TS Eliot
10. A Christmas Poem by Wendy Cope
At first sight, it’s a very ‘safe’ list of mostly well-known English middle-class Establishment writers with a nod to the US with the ‘done-to-death’ Moore poem which starts “Twas the night before Christmas …” but the inclusion of Dunbar is inspired.
Ring out, ye bells!
All Nature swells
With gladness at the wondrous story,—
The world was lorn,
But Christ is born
To change our sadness into glory.
Sing, earthlings, sing!
To-night a King
Hath come from heaven's high throne to bless us.
The outstretched hand
O'er all the land
Is raised in pity to caress us.
Come at his call;
Be joyful all;
Away with mourning and with sadness!
The heavenly choir
With holy fire
Their voices raise in songs of gladness.
The darkness breaks
And Dawn awakes,
Her cheeks suffused with youthful blushes.
The rocks and stones
In holy tones
Are singing sweeter than the thrushes.
Then why should we
In silence be,
When Nature lends her voice to praises;
When heaven and earth
Proclaim the truth
Of Him for whom that lone star blazes?
No, be not still,
But with a will
Strike all your harps and set them ringing;
On hill and heath
Let every breath
Throw all its power into singing!
It’s interesting that Wendy Cope made the list and her poem is fairly innocuous. Pam Ayres might have made more of it.
At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle,
The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle
And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle
And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful, if you're single.
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