Giv­en the sea­son, it’s fair to assume that at some point soon you will be hear­ing a ren­der­ing of Christi­na Rossetti’s In The Bleak Mid­win­ter. For me, it was last Sun­day evening, at our local church’s Christ­mas car­ol con­cert, and of all the car­ols we know and love (or at least tol­er­ate despite the overkill of decades’ worth of rep­e­ti­tion), this is one I can tru­ly get behind, due in no small mea­sure to Gus­tav Holst’s fit­ting musi­cal set­ting.

Rossetti’s poem was first pub­lished (as A Christ­mas Car­ol) in the Jan­u­ary 1872 issue of Amer­i­can lit­er­ary peri­od­i­cal, Scribner’s Month­ly (thus just miss­ing Christ­mas, iron­i­cal­ly), and it presents her unique ver­sion of the nativ­i­ty sto­ry. It was set to music in 1906 by Gus­tav Holst (the com­pos­er of The Plan­ets suite), and again by Harold Darke in 1911. Darke’s ver­sion has become a sta­ple of the BBC’s Car­ols From King’s pro­gramme, which airs each year on Christ­mas day, but it’s Holst’s that brings the poem to life for me.

Here is the famous first stan­za of the poem:

In the bleak mid­win­ter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone:
Snow had fall­en, snow on snow
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-win­ter,
Long ago.

Ros­set­ti sets the pre-Nativ­i­ty scene unequiv­o­cal­ly: she piles on the snow (on snow, on snow) and the very sparse­ness of the lan­guage builds on the sense of bleak­ness intro­duced in the first line. We get it: it was a bleak land­scape (sur­pris­ing­ly, giv­en that the area is sub-trop­i­cal and snow only ever falls on the Golan Heights, but let’s not nit­pick).

As the poem con­tin­ues, we are intro­duced to the famil­iar jux­ta­po­si­tion of divine pow­er being cast in the hum­bling cir­cum­stances of the low­ly sta­ble, with its shep­herds and wise men, oxen and ass­es, cheru­bim and seraphim. It is a sim­ple cel­e­bra­tion of the Chris­t­ian faith, a win­ter warmer of an end­ing to thaw out the bleak snows of the first lines. But it is also a cel­e­bra­tion of moth­er­ly love, of the moth­er being the only one able to care for and love her child, despite the pres­ence of heav­en­ly hosts.

But only his moth­er
In her maid­en bliss
Wor­shipped the beloved
With a kiss

Rossetti’s poem is right­ly remem­bered anew each Christ­mas, in part because of its sim­ple lan­guage and mes­sage. With Holst’s tune, a can­dlelit church, and a con­gre­ga­tion of bescarfed car­ollers, it’s guar­an­teed to get a late bloomer into the Christ­mas spir­it. Here’s a won­der­ful ren­di­tion by the choir of Kings Col­lege, Cambridge…Merry Christ­mas!

In the bleak mid­win­ter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone:
Snow had fall­en, snow on snow
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-win­ter,
Long ago.

Our God, heav­en can­not hold him
Nor earth sus­tain;
Heav­en and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-win­ter
A sta­ble-place suf­ficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.

Enough for him, whom cheru­bim
Wor­ship night and day,
A breast­ful of milk,
And a manger­ful of hay:
Enough for him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gath­ered there,
Cheru­bim and seraphim
Thronged the air -
But only his moth­er
In her maid­en bliss
Wor­shipped the beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shep­herd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part;
Yet what I can, I give him -
Give my heart.