Johann M. Moser - O Holy Night!: Masterworks of Christmas Poetry

The Aquinas Prayer Book (with Robert Anderson) Masterworks of Christmas Poetry Edited by Johann M. Moser Sophia Institute Press Manchester, New Hampshire "The Mother of God" is reprinted with permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, from The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, Revised Second Edition, edited by Richard J. Finneran. "Journey of the Magi" from Collected Poems 1909-1962 by T. S. S.

Eliot, copyright 1936 by Harcourt, Inc., copyright 1963, 1964 by T. S. Eliot, is reprinted by permission of the publisher. Permission to reprint this poem from Collected Poems 1909-1962 by T. S. in the United Kingdom. "A Christmas Hymn" from Advice to a Prophet and Other Poems, copyright 1961 and renewed 1989 by Richard Wilbur, is reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc. "Sweet is she and gently sworn" is copyright 1994 Montague Brown, and reprinted by permission of the author. "Sweet is she and gently sworn" is copyright 1994 Montague Brown, and reprinted by permission of the author.

Permission to publish a new English translation of Boris Pasternak's poem "Christmas Star" is granted by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

.................................. xi Psalm 110 PART I THE PRINCE OF PEACE Wisdom 18:14-15 Isaiah 9:6 John 1:1-5 John Donne ....................... 9 Virgil .......................... 10 Advent Processional Hymn ....................... 13 Roman Antiphonary ............. 14 Cynewulf ................ 16 Prudentius ...................... 18 G. K. K.

Chesterton ......................... 20 Andreas Gryphius .......................... 21 St. Cyril of Jerusalem .......... 22 Luke 1:68-79 PART II A WOMAN CLOTHED WITH THE SUN Isaiah 7:14 Psalm 45:13-15 Luke 1:31-33 Anonymous ..................... 30 St. 30 St.

Bernard of Clairvaux .................... 31 Paul Claudel ............. 32 Anonymous .......................... 33 Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. ...................... 35 Richard Crashaw .............. 36 Oscar Wilde ................ 37 Anonymous ............... 38 Johannes Tauler, O.P. .................... 39 John Donne ............... 40 Peter the Venerable .............. 41 Gabriela Mistral .......................... 42 William Butler Yeats .......................... 44 Dante Alighieri ................ 45 Geoffrey Chaucer ............. 46 Luke 1:46-55 PART III 0 GREAT MYSTERY! Psalm 2:7-8 Isaiah 45:8 Luke 2:6-14 Matins of Christmas ............................ 53 St. 53 St.

Bonaventure ............... 54 Ben Jonson Laurent Drelincourt Fray Ambrosio Montesino ............ 57 Robert Southwell, S.J. .............. 58 Gil Vicente St. 61 Christopher Smart ......... 62 Henry Vaughan Heinrich von Loufenberg ....................... 66 Samuel Taylor Coleridge John Milton ......... 68 Theophile Gautier ................. 70 Constantijn Huygens ................................ 71 Richard Crashaw ................. 72 Christina Rossetti Luis de Gongora y Argote ............ 76 Robert Southwell, S.J. 76 Robert Southwell, S.J.

Henry Suso, O.P. ............................. 78 Clement Marot .......... 80 Friedrich von Spee, S.J. .. 84 Lope de Vega ................. 86 St. 86 St.

John of the Cross Richard Wilbur George Herbert Montague Brown Robert Southwell, S.J. .......................... 92 G. K. Chesterton Angelus Silesius ......................... 95 St.

Augustine ............ 96 Psalm 148 PART IV BRIGHT STAR OF JACOB Numbers 24:17 Psalm 72:6-8, 10, 16-17 Matthew 2: 9-11 Charles Peguy .... 105 St. Romanos ................ 106 Heinrich Heine ........ 108 Sidney Godolphin ............. 110 St. 110 St.

Cosmas ...................... 112 Jose-Maria de Heredia ............................... 113 Boris Pasternak Annette von Droste-Hiilsoff ................ 116 T S. Eliot ......................... 120 Gelasien Sacramentary ................. 121 Luke 2:29-32 Colossians 1:15-17 Appendix A .......... 127 Appendix B ................ 131 Appendix C ............. 137 Index .......................... 139

a very superficial perusal of the European lyrical verse tradition reveals a substantial number of fine poems, often by authors of note, which are devoted to the celebration of Christ's Nativity. 139 a very superficial perusal of the European lyrical verse tradition reveals a substantial number of fine poems, often by authors of note, which are devoted to the celebration of Christ's Nativity.

Indeed, so impressive is this achievement that it engenders the irresistible urge to bring many of these poems together into a single collection. Two purposes are served by such a collection: first, it can give to a serious literary public a sense of the richness, variety, and artistic excellence that characterizes the tradition of Nativity poetry; secondly, it furnishes readers with a cultivated resource for meditating on the mystery of the Holy Night. In this collection, I have attempted to select out of the vast store of Nativity verse those works which exhibit the highest degree of artistic merit and interest. On occasion, fidelity to this consideration has induced me to include excerpts from longer works, rather than to present the entire works themselves. Also included are various passages from homiletic prose literature which are possessed of an unusually high poetic quality. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

In translating many of the poems, I have made an effort to convey those features of a work which, I felt, had the richest possibilities for producing a successful poem in English. The anthology is divided into four sections (corresponding to Advent, the Blessed Virgin, Bethlehem, the Magi) and each of these sections is framed with passages from the Old and New Testaments and from the tradition of Christian homiletic and liturgical literature. Hence, the collection as a whole resembles the ancient service of Lessons and Carols as it is still practiced in some churches today and which has its origin in the rites of the canonical hours as performed in medieval monasteries and cathedrals. At the end of the collection are several appendices for those who would be inclined to explore the chronological relationships of the works with one another, as well as with works which, for various reasons, I could not include. The evolution of the Nativity lyric in itself would be a most fruitful topic for scholarly investigation. Though the purpose of the present collection is to provide neither a history of the Nativity poem, nor a thorough scholarly compendium of all materials potentially relevant to such a history, I do hope that it might inspire scholars to prepare such compendia and to furnish them with the erudite commentary that they would certainly merit.