In the Bleak Midwinter

I dedicate this page to all who suffer through the terrible cold of northern winters. After the Christmas season, comes the hard part of winter for many. January is long, and even though it is the shortest month of the year, sometimes it seems like February will never end. For seventeen years, lucky enough to spend my winters in Florida after I retired. A year ago I sold my Florida home, and now I am back north for the winters.

Nevertheless, I remember very vividly the days of cutting firewood in the woods on days like the one described in the first verse of this poem by Christina Rossetti c. 1872. For a musical setting, this Christmas song is usually sung to the hymn tune CRANHAM by Gustav Theodore Holst, 1906.

A Winter Scene
Midwinter
In the bleak mid-winter, 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 mid-winter, long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign;
In the bleak mid-winter a stable place sufficed
The Lord almighty, Jesus Christ.

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.

Angels and archangels, may have gathered there,
Cherubim and Seraphim thronged the air;
But his mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshiped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him? Give my heart.

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