Poem for the Day The Advent wind begins to stir With sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir, Its dark at breakfast, dark at tea, And in between we only see Clouds hurrying across the sky And rain-wet roads the wind blows dry And branches bending to the gale Against great skies all silver pale The world seems travelling into space, And travelling at a faster pace Than in the leisured summer weather When we and it sit out together, For now we feel the world spin round On some momentous journey bound - Journey to what? to whom? to where? The Advent bells call out Prepare, Your world is journeying to the birth Of God made Man for us on earth. And how, in fact, do we prepare The great day that waits us there - For the twenty-fifth day of December, The birth of Christ? For some it means An interchange of hunting scenes On coloured cards, And I remember Last year I sent out twenty yards, Laid end to end, of Christmas cards To people that I scarcely know - Theyd sent a card to me, and so I had to send one back. Oh dear! Is this a form of Christmas cheer? Or is it, which is less surprising, My pride gone in for advertising? The only cards that really count Are that extremely small amount From real friends who keep in touch And are not rich but love us much Some ways indeed are very odd By which we hail the birth of God. We raise the price of things in shops, We give plain boxes fancy tops And lines which traders cannot sell Thus parcelld go extremely well We dole out bribes we call a present To those to whom we must be pleasant For business reasons. Our defence is These bribes are charged against expenses And bring relief in Income Tax Enough of these unworthy cracks! The time draws near the birth of Christ. A present that cannot be priced Given two thousand years ago Yet if God had not given so He still would be a distant stranger And not the Baby in the manger. Advent 1955 John Betjeman
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 08:27:17 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015