Christmas in English Song

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 147, 19 December 1927, Page 31

Christmas in English Song

UNALLOYED HAPPINESS

Englishmen- through- the. ages have made songs in honour of 'Christmas Day, writes M'Ghillie Eoin in the "Sydney Morning Herald." But the, best song is almost the earliest. When;-at the beginning of the sixteenth century, ■William Dunbar wrote "On the Nativi. ty of Christ," beginning—

Kolato CoeU desupcr! Hcvins, distil your balmy si-houris! For now is risen the bricht day-stor, Fro tho rose Mary, flour of flouris, The clelr Sonc, quhom no cloud devouris, Surmounting Phebus la the Est Is cumin of his nevtnly touris. Et nobis. Pucr natus cst.

and ending—

Smg, hcvin imperial, most of hlcht! Regions of air, mak arniouy! All fisli in flood and fowl of filcht. Be mirthful and'mak melody! All "Gloria in excelsis" cry! Heaven, erd, se, man, bird, and best, He that is crownit abone tho sky: Pro iiobis Piter natus est.

—he gained a place eternally secure in the roll of English poets. "On the Nativity of Christ," written 100 years before the Elizabethans, achieves a fire, a sincerity, a command of simple language, and. a command of solemn music equalled only by the greatest of the Elizabethans. "Written 300 years before Wordsworth, it anticipates some of the best things Wordsworth could give the world—

Archangellis, angclUs, and dompnationls, Trorits, potestatis, and - marteiris seir. And all ye hevinly operations, Ster, planet, flrmaneut, and sphelr. Fire, crd, sc, and water cleir, To Him gife loving, most and lest, Xliat come In to so .meifc niiincir, Et nobis Puer natus est..

Dunbar's song, as Christmas Day songj has had no equal. But between it and that sonnet in which Mr. G. K. Chesterton, moved for once from a rather perfervid to an entirely majestic liberalism, apostrophised "A popular Labour leader"—

Tho feast of friends, the candle-fruited tree I have not failed to honour, and I say. It would be better for such men as we.

And wo bo nearer Bethlehem if we lay, Shot dead on scarlet snows for liberty, Dead in tho daylight upon Christmas Day.

Christmas -songs were written by writers' who have been placed—some permanently—amongst the greatest of English poets: Ben Jonson, Milton, Herrick, Giles Fletcher; the hapless Robert Southwell, George Herbert, Crashaw, Coleridge, William Morris, Christina Eossetti, even Swinburne.

Milton's. "Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity. is youthful, sometime stiff, "but'always beautifulj with the strange beauty of organ music. Herrick saw Christmas sometimes as a light fairly shining in ii/; darkened world— - . :■.'■•..

Why does the chilly winter's morn Smile like a Deld beset with corn?

and. sometmes as the happy conserver of old country custom—

lou many a plum and many a pear. For' more or less fruits they will bring. As you. do give them wassailing.

Christina Hossetti could think of Christmas only in. remembering the miracle of the earliest Christmas—

Our God, heaven cannot hold him, Nor earth sustain. Heaven and earth shall flee away, ' When Ho comes to reigu. In the bleak midwinter A stable-place sufficed The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Swinburne's "Three Damsels in the King's Chamber" moves with a veryquiet, clear music—

The star came out upon tne east, . .With a. great sound, and sweet; * Sings gave gold to make hini feast And rayrth to make aim cat. Such things are the work of the elect of poetry. Brit • Christmas is, above

all, tho feast of the common people. And the common people of England have always loved to build their own rhymes about the things dearest to their hearts. So the great bulk of Christmas verses is attributed to no author—is made up by songs handed down from generation to generation in. broadsheet and blaekletter and anonymous almanac. The simplicity of these carols occasionally reaches heights of true poetry:

God rest you, lnerry gentlemen, - May nothing you dismay; For Jesus ■ Christ our Saviour ' Was born upon this day.

But they generally can claim to be nothing more than the crude and happy songs of a crudely happy people. And the same sturdy belief in tho goodness of the world as it exists laughs through them all, deal they with the religious significance of the day or merely with its material celebration. The latter, indeed, is the thiing in which they most rejoice. They run on for twenty or thirty stanzas with refrains such as—

Plum pudding, goose, capon, minced Dies and roast beef.

They lovingly recount the items without any one of which Christmas would seem to them lacking:— '■

Provide for Christmas : e: r e thai it come; Good bread and drink and firo in the hallBrawn, pudding, souse, and good mustard withall; .-.-■-. Beef, mutton, pork,and shred pies of the best; Pig, veal, goose, capon, and turkey well drest: Apples and nuts to throw, about tho hall. They occasionally,resort to a mild social satire:—-■ ,' ... ■. ..

Now poor men fd-the justices, \Xith capons make their arrenls; And if iliey hap to fail of these. They Dlague.them with their warrents. But this' is an unusual note. Christendoni has two great days of yearly remembrance. One is silent, dark, a*d bitter-sweet. The other is of happiness unalloyed. And unalloyed happiness is the spirit of almost^ all the songs we English have, made' in. its praise.