This is a space where I have a mid life crisis, write about my creative journey, and talk about songwriting and share bits of terrible poetry.

In the Bleak Mid Winter

Written in

by

Poem is Christina Rossetti. Tune is Holst from traditional. I modified Rossetti’s language to make it a little softer, and the tune is as I remember it, arranged for tenor guitar and voice.

In the Bleak Mid Winter.
Frosty wind made moan.
Earth stood hard an Iron.
Water like a Stone.
Snow an fallen
Snow on Snow,
Snow on snow.
In the Bleak Midwinter,
long time ago.

Our love Heaven can’t hold it
nor Earth sustain
Heaven and earth will fall away
When it comes to reign.
In the bleak mid winter
A stable did suffice.
Our love made incarnate,
A fragile new life.

Enough for him who Cherubim
Worship night and day.
A breast full of milk
and a manger full of hay.
Enough for him who angels
Fall down before.
The ox and ass and camel,
Which adore.

Shepards and Wiseman
May have gathered there.
Cherubim and Seraphim
Thronged the air.
But only his mother
In her tired bliss.
Worshipped the beloved,
with a gentle kiss.

What can I give them,
as poor as I am?
If I were a Shepard,
I would give a lamb.
If I were a wise man,
I would do my part.
But what should I give them?
I could give me heart.

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