Bleakly Midwinterish
This is not my favourite time of the year. The rose hips, below, sum it up for me. Everything's predominantly grey, bleak and midwintery.
In the Bleak Midwinter is one of my favourite carols. It was originally a Christmas poem by Christina Rossetti, written for an American magazine, Scribner's Monthly, in 1872.
In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on snow
Snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter.
Long ago.
The last verse isn't bad: it has a kind of haunting quality: sentimental, but I love a bit of sentimental from time to time:
What can I give him
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would give a lamb
If I were a wise man
I would do my part
Yet what I can, I give him
Give my heart.
But sadly, in the middle verses poor Christina lost it completely. Here's my least favourite:
Enough for him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay
Enough for him, whom angels
Fall down before
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore
A breastful of milk and a mangerful of hay? Has anyone ever, before or since, used the phrase "a breastful of milk"? No, I thought not. And that's because it's hideously, wince-makingly awful.
The other two middle verses are also clumsily worded - it's as though Christina was thinking "Oh, damn, they wanted five verses and I've only got two good ones and the deadline's tomorrow. I'll hide the bad ones in the middle and hope nobody notices."
I know the words of lots of carols from singing in the school choir years ago - but, interestingly, though I love the tune of this one, those middle verses just haven't stuck in my head.
Ever optimistic, I'm moving on now to quote a bit of Shelley: - Ode to the West Wind. I find the poem as a whole is really a bit OTT but it has a great first line:
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being
He should then have cut the whole of the rest of it and jumped straight to the ending:
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Here's to Spring: to lambs, daffodils and better weather.
In the Bleak Midwinter is one of my favourite carols. It was originally a Christmas poem by Christina Rossetti, written for an American magazine, Scribner's Monthly, in 1872.
Gustav Holst wrote the music, which is known as "Cranham" and I've always liked the tune.
The first verse is great, though more evocative of a Northern winter than a typical winter in Nazareth, I suspect. Still, I love both the words and the sound of them.In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on snow
Snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter.
Long ago.
The last verse isn't bad: it has a kind of haunting quality: sentimental, but I love a bit of sentimental from time to time:
What can I give him
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would give a lamb
If I were a wise man
I would do my part
Yet what I can, I give him
Give my heart.
But sadly, in the middle verses poor Christina lost it completely. Here's my least favourite:
Enough for him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay
Enough for him, whom angels
Fall down before
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore
A breastful of milk and a mangerful of hay? Has anyone ever, before or since, used the phrase "a breastful of milk"? No, I thought not. And that's because it's hideously, wince-makingly awful.
The other two middle verses are also clumsily worded - it's as though Christina was thinking "Oh, damn, they wanted five verses and I've only got two good ones and the deadline's tomorrow. I'll hide the bad ones in the middle and hope nobody notices."
I know the words of lots of carols from singing in the school choir years ago - but, interestingly, though I love the tune of this one, those middle verses just haven't stuck in my head.
Ever optimistic, I'm moving on now to quote a bit of Shelley: - Ode to the West Wind. I find the poem as a whole is really a bit OTT but it has a great first line:
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being
He should then have cut the whole of the rest of it and jumped straight to the ending:
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Here's to Spring: to lambs, daffodils and better weather.
posted by Daphne at 12:11 pm
4 Comments:
I'm just off to the shop. Dare me to ask for a breastful of milk?
reminds me of Alan Bennett's story, when, during the war, his form, Standard 3, from Armley School, visited Leeds City Art Gallery, and found themselves in front of a Great Heroic Painting, where a dying soldier lay on a bloody battlefield with a woman wading in amongst the wounded:
"She had ripped aside her bodice to display an ample breast. What she was doing was expelling the contents of her breasts, I think the technical term is expressing – with all the overtones of the dairy – but expelling the contents of her breast into the mouth of the wounded warrior. Now the range would be about three yards and there may, who knows, have been some bosh shots, but certainly at the moment of depiction she was bang on target, this lactic parabola going straight into his mouth."
Agreed that the weather isn't great. However, the British obsession with the weather (I mean in the media) makes for hard work. All this talk about 'the cold spell and imminent snow' which I am constantly reading about on the BBC website. It's 1x 24hr cold spell and there is no snow down here (not sure about up north), but it seems in this country we (all) obsess about the weather no end.
Malc - you could explain that you were just quoting a well-known carol. The downside might be getting thrown off the island.
John - what a great phrase "this lactic parabola" is. Hurrah for Mr Bennett.
Siegfried - please see my latest post. And I apologise for nicking your crumpets.
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