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Voices in the Mist
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.
Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:
Each voice four changes on the wind,
That now dilate, and now decrease,
Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
A Thousand Bells
It is the calm and solemn night!
A thousand bells ring out, and throw
Their joyous peals abroad, and smile
The darkness, charm’d and holy now!
The night that erst no name had worn,
To it a happy name is given
For in that stable lay new-born
The peaceful Prince of Earth and Heaven,
In the solemn midnight!
Centuries ago.
Alfred Domett
A Hymn on the Nativity of My Saviour
I sing the birth was born tonight,
The Author both of life and light;
The angels so did sound it.
And like the ravished shepherds said,
Who saw the light and were afraid,
Yet searched, and true they found it.
Ben Jonson 1573-1637
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