CHRISTMAS POEMS

The Escape Of The Old Grey Squirrel

Old Grey Squirrel might have been
Almost anything -
Might have been a soldier, sailor,
Tinker, tailor
.....

Alfred Noyes

Grandson

Act like them, you won’t make it
Appreciate their era, for who you are today
Griddles’ threaten your health, forgiveness heals
10 million budget function is nothing, for they are not alive
.....

Marco Babu

Michael: A Pastoral Poem

If from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
.....

William Wordsworth

Guessing Time

It's guessing time at our house; every evening after tea
We start guessing what old Santa's going to leave us on our tree.
Everyone of us holds secrets that the others try to steal,
And that eyes and lips are plainly having trouble to conceal.
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

The Day Of Days

A year is filled with glad events:
The best is Christmas day,
But every holiday presents
Its special round of play,
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

Christmas In India

Dim dawn behind the tamerisks-the sky is saffron-yellow-
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow
That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born.
.....

Rudyard Kipling

The Old Huntsman

I've never ceased to curse the day I signed
A seven years' bargain for the Golden Fleece.
'Twas a bad deal all round; and dear enough
It cost me, what with my daft management,
.....

Siegfried Sassoon

A Christmas Carol

God bless you all this Christmas Day
And drive the cares and griefs away.
Oh, may the shining Bethlehem star
Which led the wise men from afar
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

At Christmas

A man is at his finest towards the finish of the year;
He is almost what he should be when the Christmas season is here;
Then he's thinking more of others than he's thought the months before,
And the laughter of his children is a joy worth toiling for.
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

Advent

We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
.....

Patrick Kavanagh

Cultural Exchange

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doors are doors of paper
Dust of dingy atoms
Blows a scratchy sound.
.....

Langston Hughes

Signs

It's “be a good boy, Willie,”
And it's “run away and play,
For Santa Claus is coming
With his reindeer and his sleigh.”
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

The Christmas Gift For Mother

In the Christmas times of the long ago,
There was one event we used to know
That was better than any other;
It wasn't the toys that we hoped to get,
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

A Friend's Greeting

DIAMONDS wouldn't tell yer all I really think of you,
The costliest gift the goldsmith makes I'm sure would never do.
There's nothing known that gold can buy that I could ever send
That could explain how glad I am to have yer fer a friend.
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

The Twins Of Lucky Strike

I've sung of Violet de Vere, that slinky, minky dame,
Of Gertie of the Diamond Tooth, and Touch-the-Button Nell,
And Maye Lamore,-at eighty-four I oughta blush wi' shame
That in my wild and wooly youth I knew them ladies well.
.....

Robert Service

On Going Home For Christmas

He little knew the sorrow that was in his vacant chair;
He never guessed they'd miss him, or he'd surely have been there;
He couldn't see his mother or the lump that filled her throat,
Or the tears that started falling as she read his hasty note;
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

The Child Of The Islands - Winter

I.

ERE the Night cometh! On how many graves
Rests, at this hour, their first cold winter's snow!
.....

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton

Smells

WHY is it that the poet tells
So little of the sense of smell?
These are the odors I love well:

.....

Christopher Morley

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

Jolly old St. Nicholas, Lean your ear this way!
Don't you tell a single soul, What I'm going to say;
Christmas Eve is coming soon; Now, you dear old man,
Whisper what you'll bring to me: Tell me if you can.
.....

Anonymous

Go Tell It On The Mountain

While shepherds kept their watching
O'er silent flocks by night,
Behold throughout the heavens
There shone a holy light
.....

Anonymous

Bring, In This Timeless Grave To Throw

Bring, in this timeless grave to throw,
No cypress, sombre on the snow;
Snap not from the bitter yew
His leaves that live December through;
.....

A. E. Housman

The True Christmas

So stick up ivy and the bays,
And then restore the heathen ways.
Green will remind you of the spring,
Though this great day denies the thing.
.....

Henry Vaughan

Old Times

Friend of my youth, let us talk of old times;
Of the long lost golden hours.
When "Winter" meant only Christmas chimes,
And "Summer" wreaths of flowers.
.....

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester

Just now the lilac is in bloom,
All before my little room;
And in my flower-beds, I think,
Smile the carnation and the pink;
.....

Rupert Brooke

'twas Just This Time, Last Year, I Died

445

'Twas just this time, last year, I died.
I know I heard the Corn,
.....

Emily Dickinson

Jest 'fore Christmas

Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,
Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!
Mighty glad I ain't a girl-ruther be a boy,
Without them sashes, curls, an' things that's worn by Fauntleroy!
.....

Eugene Field

A Christmas Gift

Alack-A-Day for poverty!
What jewels my mind doth give to thee!

Carved agate stone porphyrogene,
.....

Don Marquis

Bredon Hill

In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires the ring them
In steeples far and near,
.....

A. E. Housman

Before The Ice Is In The Pools

37

Before the ice is in the pools-
Before the skaters go,
.....

Emily Dickinson

The Christmas Beetle

When Christmas comes the Christmas heat'll
bring once more the Christmas Beetle
The first inflammatory breeze'll
set him buzzing like a diesel.
.....

Leon Gellert

The Approach Of Christmas

There's a little chap at our house that is being mighty good-
Keeps the front lawn looking tidy in the way we've said he should;
Doesn't leave his little wagon, when he's finished with his play,
On the sidewalk as he used to; now he puts it right away.
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

Revolving Doors

O wild night of the soul
I clean my lungs with cigarettes

See through a view between the buildings
.....

S. K. Kelen

Art's Martyr

Telleth of a young man that fain would be fairly tattooed on his
flesh, after the heathen manner, in devices of blue, and that,
falling among the Dyacks, a folk of Borneo, was by them tattooed
in modern fashion and device, and of his misery that fell upon
.....

Andrew Lang

Merry

No one's hangin' stockin's up,
No one's bakin' pie,
No one's lookin' up to see
A new star in the sky.
.....

Shel Silverstein

Jerusalem

I wept until my tears were dry
I prayed until the candles flickered
I knelt until the floor creaked
I asked about Mohammed and Christ
.....

Nizar Qabbani

Moscow Carol

In such an inexplicable blue,
Upon the stonework to embark,
The little ship of glowing hue
Appears in Alexander Park.
.....

Joseph Brodsky

O Little Town Of Bethlehem

O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by:
.....

Phillips Brooks

A Charm

Take of English earth as much
As either hand may rightly clutch.
In the taking of it breathe
Prayer for all who lie beneath.
.....

Rudyard Kipling

Twas Just This Time, Last Year, I Died

445

'Twas just this time, last year, I died.
I know I heard the Corn,
.....

Emily Dickinson

Old Christmas

Now he who knows old Christmas,
He knows a carle of worth;
For he is as good a fellow
As any upon earth.
.....

Mary Howitt

The Shepheardes Calender: December

December: Ã?gloga Duodecima.

He gentle shepheard satte beside a springe,
All in the shadowe of a bushy brere,
.....

Edmund Spenser

The Twelve Days Of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree.

.....

Anonymous

Marriage

Should I get married? Should I be Good?
Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustaus hood?
Don't take her to movies but to cemeteries
tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets
.....

Gregory Corso

Christmas Welcome

Under the wintry skies,
Sundered from home and kin,
With patience and love in her eyes,
Mary is journeying.
.....

Alice Guerin Crist

Christmas.

How did they keep his birthday then,
The little fair Christ, so long ago?
O, many there were to be housed and fed,
And there was no place in the inn, they said,
.....

Susan Coolidge (sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

The Wassail Song

Here we come a wassailing
Among the leaves so green,
Here we come a wandering
So fair to be seen.
.....

Anonymous

I'm Walking Backwards For Christmas

I'm walking backwards for Christmas,
Across the Irish Sea,
I'm walking backwards for Christmas,
It's the only thing for me.
.....

Spike Milligan

Commination

The prayers are o'er: why slumberest thou so long,
Thou voice of sacred song?
Why swell'st thou not, like breeze from mountain cave,
High o'er the echoing nave,
.....

John Keble

Lines

Addressed to Jonathan Wingle, Esq.

In summer time we roam o'er dingle,
But winter draws us round the ingle ;
.....

James Mcintyre

His Santa Claus

He will not come to him this year with all his old-time joy,
An imitation Santa Claus must serve his little boy;
Last year he heard the reindeers paw the roof above his head,
And as he dreamed the kindly saint tip-toed about his bed,
.....

Edgar Albert Guest