Advent poetry and poets

The time draws near the birth of Christ

The moon is hid; the night is still;

The Christmas bells from hill to hill

Answer each other in the mist.

----

Ring out a slowly dying cause.

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

From Alfred Lord Tennyson's "In Memorium"

Religion and Ethics Newsweekly is an erudite and informative PBS program that usually airs on Sunday afternoons in my area. On the website, you can get a brief synopsis of upcoming stories.

This is one I didn't want to wait for and so I share it with you in this season of Advent-tide. It's a little history, a little literary, and all Emmanuel. Poetry, there is nothing more mystical and able to convey the Advent anticipation and quiet excitement of the season. Here are examples of poetry for Advent/Christmas, some of which I had never heard of, but am delighted to find.

I think you will find them a spiritual and mystically influencing way to approach the season of waiting. I know I have...