Monday, December 21, 2015

Birthday Chords


This Christmas, we will share our two favorite Christmas poems. The first one has been called “wistful” and the second, “bitter”. They were created by two of America’s  most gifted purveyors of thought and passion. We prefer the appellation:  “POWERFUL”.


December 25

By W. H. Auden

...Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long. 

~~~|||~~~


To Jesus on His Birthday

By Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)


For this your mother sweated in the cold,
For this you bled upon the bitter tree:
A yard of tinsel ribbon bought and sold;
A paper wreath; a day at home for me.
The merry bells ring out, the people kneel;
Up goes the man of God before the crowd;
With voice of honey and with eyes of steel
He drones your humble gospel to the proud.
Nobody listens. Less than the wind that blows
Are all your words to us you died to save.
O Prince of Peace! O Sharon's dewy Rose!
How mute you lie within your vaulted grave.
The stone the angel rolled away with tears
Is back upon your mouth these thousand years.