Hello, HPPR listeners. My name is Andrea Elise and I’m writing from Amarillo, TX.
It is never too early or too late to revisit Christina Rossetti’s magnificent nativity poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter.”
The verse not only validates that we are not alone in our life travails and that we have Christ walking beside us as we navigate the sorrows and hardships. It also evokes the musicality of language, and it highlights the importance of Christ’s mother.
Regarding the former, the piece begs to be song-filled. The repetition of the word “snow” in the first quatrain/stanza longs for harmonic patterns that pull us into the picture of that dark day when “earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.”
We can almost hear a choir’s devotion when the lyrics in the second stanza turn to the arrival of Christ: “…a stable place sufficed The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.”
We may wonder how a stable could be good enough for this pivotal arrival. Rosetti makes it clear that cherubim, milk, a “manger-full” of hay and animals like an ox and camel are sufficient surroundings for this extraordinary event.
However, there is a line that stays with me during each reading. The third line of the fourth stanza states: “But His mother only, in her maiden bliss, worshipped the beloved with a kiss.”
What instrument or voice do you imagine when you think of the power of a mother’s kiss?
Maybe there is no tool or vocal range that can capture that beautiful, soul-saving touch. Or perhaps the words are a thunderbolt to remind us about Mary’s sacrifice and love that brought the child into the world.
Interesting, isn’t it, that Christina Rosetti lived in a time when women were largely excluded from many professions and higher education. She was more like the shepherds in the fifth stanza than anyone else in the poem.
Some people may find the sentiment in the last stanza a bit contrived when the writer says, “What can I give Him, poor as I am?”
Does she come across as whiny or too self-deprecating to say she cannot do much for the Him since she is poor? That all she can offer is her heart?
I don’t think so. Making oneself so vulnerable and humble as to offer this complicated and vital organ is courageous. It certainly isn’t flashy, but the quiet and pure gesture is one that can turn a person inside out.
Those kinds of emotions and the willingness to be raw lend themselves, yet again, to song.
It is not a wonder, then, that Gustav Holst set these luminous words to music in 1906. Whether the hymn is sung a cappella or with the accompaniment of an organ or other instrument, the melody captures the lyrics and sensibility perfectly.
Christina Rosetti’s poem was published in 1872 when she was 42 years old, two years before Gustav Holst was born. She was a woman far ahead of her time, as was Mary.
Language, melody and Madonna: three focal points in a universal piece of literature. How can we not stand in awe?
This is Andrea Elise for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club.
