My Favorite Christmas Poem

It’s Christmas time, a time of hope and light, a time to take a break from business and Washington, D.C. Here’s my favorite poem by Cecil Day Lewis, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and father of Academy Award winner Daniel Day Lewis.

Thank you for reading me this year, I hope to be there for you again in 2014. Merry Christmas, and peace and love to you and yours. I hope you enjoy this poem:

The Christmas Tree by Cecil Day Lewis

Put out the lights now! Look at the Tree, the rough tree dazzled In oriole plumes of flame, Tinselled with twinkling frost fire, tasselled With stars and moons - the same That yesterday hid in the spinney and had no fame Till we put out the lights now. Hard are the nights now:

The fields at moonrise turn to agate, Shadows are cold as jet; In dyke and furrow, in copse and faggot The frost's tooth is set; And stars are the sparks whirled out by the north wind's fret On the flinty nights now.

So feast your eyes now On mimic star and moon-cold bauble; Worlds may wither unseen, But the Christmas Tree is a tree of fable, A phoenix in evergreen, And the world cannot change or chill what its mysteries mean To your hearts and eyes now.

The vision dies now Candle by candle: the tree that embraced it Returns to its own kind, To be earthed again and weather as best it May the frost and the wind. Children, it too had its hour – you will not mind If it lives or dies now.