Enjoying the ‘flawless Greek’ of the ‘washerwomen’ of Mungret

Mungret Abbey on the outskirts of Limerick is one of the oldest monastic sites in Munster (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

In my journeys between Askeaton and Limerick during the week, I regularly pass Mungret and the ruins of Saint Nessan’s Church, about three miles west of the city on the south side of the road between Limerick and Askeaton and Foynes. Because it is near Raheen on the western outskirts of Limerick City, Mungret is rapidly becoming a suburb as the city expands, with its own identity and an estimated population of about 9,000.

Despite its rapid growth in recent years, the church ruins are an indication of the early monastic settlement here that dates back almost 1,500 years, and the site is much older as its name indicates.

The name appears to mean ‘bog or sedgy morass of the sloping hill,’ although some sources say the Irish Muine Gairid, meaning ‘the Short Hill,’ or ‘the Short Thicket or Grove.’

At one time, Mungret was one of the most important Early Christian monasteries in north Munster. The site is said to date back to 551, when a monastery was founded here by Saint Nessan.

Saint Nessan was also known as Saint Nessan the Leper, and he was a disciple of Saint Patrick according to local folklore. However, Saint Nessan died in 551 or 561, which makes it extremely unlikely that he could ever have been a disciple of Saint Patrick. It is also suggested that Saint Nessan may have been a disciple of Saint Ailbe from Emly.

It is said that Mungret once had six churches and abut 1,500 monks. Today the ruins of only four churches survive on the site:

1, Mungret Abbey, the main church, which dates back to at least 1100 AD and continued to be added to into the late Middle Ages.

2, A smaller, possibly pre-Norman church, which is across the road from the main graveyard, and is believed to date from between 800 and 1100.

3, A ruined Church of Ireland parish church, dating from the 1820s.

4, The monastery church or Saint Nessan’s Church, the ruins of a 12th century church next to the Limerick-Foynes road, which is a narrow building with an east window and a flat-headed west doorway.

In addition, there are two graveyards in this large, sprawling monastic site. The largest graveyard surrounds the old abbey church and the ruined Church of Ireland parish church. The second graveyard is located to the east and surrounds the smaller possible pre-Norman church.

The tower at Mungret Abbey was built in the 15th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The story is told locally about the ‘Wise Women of Mungret,’ when Mungret was renowned as a monastic school and seat of learning. A contest had been arranged between Mungret and another famous monastic school to decide which monastery had the more learned scholars.

When visiting monks arrived from the Monastery of Saint Carthage at Lismore, Co Waterford, the monks of Mungret did not wish to be defeated in the contest, devised a plan to intimidate the opposition. A number of monks from Mungret dressed up as women on the day of the contest, and began washing clothes near a ford that the other monks had to cross.

One of the visiting monks from Lismore asked a ‘washerwoman’ for directions to the monastery in Irish. The ‘washerwoman’ replied in flawless Latin. A second ‘washerwoman’ gave more information in flawless Greek.

The monks decided that if the washerwomen were fluent in Greek and Latin, then the learned scholars of the monastery would surely defeat them in the contest. They returned to Lismore, leaving the monks of Mungret unchallenged.

The small church at Mungret Abbey is believed to date from between 800 and 1100 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

It is said the 1,500 monks at Mungret were divided into three groups: one-third were preachers, one-third recited the psalms and daily offices, and one-third who spent their days in spiritual exercises.

The Abbots of Mungret were powerful local figures, and one abbot, Bodbgal, was killed in a battle in 757. But the monastery was plundered on several occasions. Although it is said it was raided on three occasions by the Vikings in the ninth century, the only recorded attack was in 834. Despite these Viking raids, the monastery was held in such high repute that King Cormac of Cashel bequeathed three ounces of gold and a satin chasuble to Mungret in 902.

By the early tenth century, the Vikings had settled permanently and peacefully in Limerick City. The accidental burning of the monastery in 1081, or the attack by Domhnall Mac Lochlain of Ulster in 1088, when the monastery was burned again, may have provided the opportunities to rebuild the once timber monastery in stone. Mungret was plundered again by Murtagh O Brien in 1107.

The diocesan system was introduced to the Church in Ireland at the Synod of Rathbreasail in 1111. At the time, Mungret was the largest ecclesiastical centre in Co Limerick, and the monks hoped Mungret would become the centre for a new diocese. Instead, however, Limerick was chosen because of the power and influence of the O Brien family. The decision was resisted by the monks of Mungret, who continued to pace themselves under the jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Cashel.

An artist’s impression of the early monastic settlement at Mungret Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The power of the monastery was broken in 1179, when the King of Munster, Donal Mor O Brien, granted Mungret Abbey and its lands to the Bishop of Limerick, Brictius. The Bishops of Limerick made Mungret their own manor, and without its own income the monastery soon went into decline.

Although the main church on the site has the proportions and the faded dignity of a mediaeval cathedral, it became a parish church, and from the 12th century onward it was served by Canons Regular of the Order of Saint Augustine. Other local traditions associate the mediaeval monastery with the Dominicans and with the Knights Templar.

The largest church at Mungret, according to a plaque on the north wall, is a pre-Norman church and dates back to least 1100 AD. It was rebuilt between 1251 and 1272. The ruin is divided into three parts, the chancel to the east, which dates from the 13th century, the nave in the centre, the date of which is unknown, and the west part of the ruin, which dates from the 15th century.

There is a lintelled doorway with inclined jambs leading into the nave, the oldest part of the church. The square tower at the west end, added in the 15th century, served as the priests’ living quarters.

The abbey church continued in use as the Church of Ireland parish church until 1822, although by 1780 most of the building was without a roof. There is a number of tombs in the graveyard, with names that include Vokes, Shute, Massey and Beauchamp. Buried here too is Seamus Ó Dálaigh, a Gaelic poet who died in 1810.

The ruins of the Church of Ireland parish church, designed by James Pain, with the tower of Mungret Abbey seen through the surviving arch (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

In 1822, the Parish of Mungret received a grant of £300 from the Boartd of First Fruits for building a new parish church on the site. The architect of the new church was James Pain (1779-1877), the Limerick-based architect whose other works include Castletown Church near Pallaskenry, Saint Munchin’s Church, Limerick, and the old Rectory in Askeaton.

Pain’s new parish church in Mungret was consecrated in 1825. The church was designed for a congregation of 100, with box pews and an octagonal tower at the west end. The glebe house, now known as Mount Mungret, was built in 1826.

The floor plan of James Pain’s Church of Ireland parish church at Mungret Abbey

Seventy acres of the neighbouring Bindon estate were bought by the Church of Ireland Bishop of Limerick in 1851 as one of five trustees to establish an agricultural training college and model farm, that opened in 1858.

By 1870, the number of Church of Ireland parishioners in Mungret had fallen to 10, and services were held only four times a year. The parish was amalgamated with Saint Michael’s in Limerick City, the glebe house was sold in 1874, and the church closed in 1877.

The roof was removed from the church in 1900, and in 1929 the stonework of the church was sold and used to build the presbytery in the Roman Catholic parish in Raheen.

Meanwhile, the abbey church and the churches on the site were transferred to the state in 1880. Since then, the site has been maintained by the Board of Works, later the Office of Public Works, which carried out extensive repairs of the ruins in 1932. The surrounding graveyard is still in use and has been extended in the past 25-30 years.

The bell of Mungret was found at Loghmore near the abbey. In the Catholic Directory in 1837, Mungret parish is referred to as Loghmore. That year, the parish name was changed to Mungret.

The monastic ruins and the graveyard are overlooked by the buildings of the former college. It was first an agricultural college and then was a Limerick Roman Catholic diocesan seminary until 1888. Mungret College then became a Jesuit college and secondary school from 1882. The college produced over 1,000 priests, although not quite the 1,500 associated in myth with Mungret Abbey.

Past pupils of Mungret College include Brendan Bracken, a politician closely linked with Winston Churchill; Frank Fahy TD; Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican’ in World War II and the hero of the movie The Scarlet and the Black; the author Oliver St John Gogarty; and Vincent O’Brien, celebrated racehorse trainer and breeder.

Mungret College closed for the last time in 1974. The Jesuits have their own section in the graveyard, with a number of plain crosses, although some of the crosses are without names.

The Jesuit graveyard at Mungret Abbey, with the former Mungret College in the background (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Christmas Poems (10): In the Bleak Mid-Winter, by Christina Rossetti

‘If I were a shepherd,/I would bring a lamb’ (Christina Rossetti) … the Neo-Gothic Altarpiece carved at Oberammergau in the 19th century now in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

My choice of Christmas poem for Christmas Eve is ‘In the Bleak Mid-Winter,’ by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). This is, perhaps, both my favourite Christmas poem and my favourite Christmas Carol, and for many it is closely associated with the Service of Nine Lessons with Carols, broadcast each Christmas Eve from the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge.

But then the traditional Bidding Prayer, which was written for the Service of Nine Lessons with Carols by Eric Milner-White (1884-1963) while he was Dean of King’s College Chapel, has a poetic quality to it too:

The Dean: Beloved in Christ,
be it this Christmas Eve our care and delight
to prepare to hear again the message of the angels:
in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem
and see this thing which is come to pass,
and with the Magi adore the Child lying in his Mother’s arms.

Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture
the tale of the loving purposes of God
from the first days of our disobedience
unto the glorious Redemption brought us by this Holy Child.
and let us make this chapel, dedicated to his pure and lowly Mother,
glad with our carols of praise:

But first,
let us pray for the needs of the whole world;
for peace and goodwill over all the earth;
for unity and brotherhood within the Church he came to build,
within the dominions of our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth,
within this University and City of Cambridge,
and in the two royal and religious Foundations of King Henry VI here and at Eton:

And let us at this time remember, in his name,
the poor and the helpless,
the cold, the hungry, and the oppressed;
the sick and them that mourn,
the lonely and the unloved,
the aged and the little children;
all those who know not the Lord Jesus,
or who love him not,
or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.

Lastly,
let us remember before God
all those who rejoice with us,
but upon another shore and in a greater light,
that multitude which no man can number,
whose hope was in the Word made flesh,
and with whom we for evermore are one.

These prayers and praises let us humbly offer up
to the throne of heaven,
in the words which Christ himself hath taught us:

Our Father …

May the Almighty God bless us with his grace;
Christ give us the joys of everlasting life,
and unto the fellowship of the citizens above
may the King of Angels bring us all. Amen.

We used an adaptation of this Bidding Prayer at the two main carol services in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, earlier this week.

King’s College and King’s Parade, Cambridge, in the summer sunshine earlier this year … Christina Rossetti’s poem, ‘In the Bleak Mid-Winter,’ became popular after it was included in the BBC broadcasts of the Service of Nine Lessons with Carols from King’s College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The Service of Nine Lessons with Carols was first designed by Edward Benson when he was Bishop of Truro for use in his cathedral. It was later simplified and adapted for use in the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, for Christmas Eve in 1918.

At the time, Eric Milner-White was 34 and had just been appointed Dean of King’s Chapel, Cambridge, at the end of World War I. His war-time experiences as an army chaplain had convinced him that the Church of England needed more imaginative worship. His Order of Service was revised a year later with a rearrangement of the lessons, so that since 1919 the service always begins with the hymn ‘Once in Royal David’s City.’ He later went on to be Dean of York.

The service was first broadcast in 1928 and – with the exception of 1930 – it has been broadcast annually, even during World War II when the ancient glass, and all heat, had been removed from the Chapel.

In the early 1930s, the BBC began broadcasting the service on the World Service. It is estimated that it has millions of listeners worldwide. In recent years, a digital recording has been broadcast on Christmas Day on Radio Three, and since 1963, a shorter service, with different music and readings, has been filmed periodically for television.

Christina Rossetti’s poem, ‘In the Bleak Mid-Winter,’ became popular among choirs after it was included it in the BBC broadcasts of the Service of Nine Lessons with Carols by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, using the 1911 setting by Harold Edwin Darke (1888-1976). He had once been the conductor of the choir, and his setting of the poem as a carol included his beautiful and delicate organ accompaniment.

But the tune most often associated with ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ is Cranham, composed in 1906 by Gustav Holst (1874-1934).

The poem had only been published for the first time seven years earlier in Christina Rossetti’s Poetic Works, ten years after her death. It was republished in 1906 The English Hymnal, edited by Percy Dearmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams, with Holst’s setting, and it quickly became a popular Christmas carol.

Today Christina Rossetti’s ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ is one of the most popular and best-loved carols. Some years ago, in a BBC poll of some of the world’s leading choirmasters and choral experts, it was chosen as the best-ever Christmas carol. It came out top in the BBC Music Magazine some years ago, above well-known songs and carols such as Silent Night, Ding Dong Merrily on High and Once in Royal David’s City.

Christina Rossetti was part of the Victorian arts-and-crafts movement and the pre-Raphaelite movement. She was a leading advocate of women’s rights, a campaigner against slavery and war, and a prominent member of the Anglo-Catholic movement. She wrote ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ in 1872 in answer to a request from a magazine. But, like a lot of writers, she must have been frustrated that she never saw its publication.

So it took over 30 years, more than a generation, before this poem was first sung as a Christmas carol. Ever since then, though, it has been a firm Christmas favourite, and has been recorded by the King’s Singers, Julie Andrews, the Moody Blues, the Pet Shop Boys, James Taylor, Alison Crowe, Moya Brennan, Celtic Woman, Sarah McLachlan, Sarah Brightman and Loreena McKennitt.

But I still find this popularity surprising, because this is no popular, cosy, comfortable Christmas carol. Instead its images are harsh and bleak, and in today’s uncomfortable economic climate that are challenging and demanding once again.

In the bleak midwinter … snow had fallen, snow on snow … Comberford Hall in the snow last Christmas (Photograph © Nigel Chadwick, 2010)

In the bleak midwinter (Irish Church Hymnal, No 162), by Christina Rossetti:

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 midwinter,
long ago.

Our God, heav’n cannot hold him,
nor earth sustain;
heav’n and earth shall flee away
when he comes to reign:
in the bleak midwinter
a stable place sufficed
the Lord God almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for him, whom cherubim
worship night and day,
a breast full of milk
and a manger-ful 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 his mother only,
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.

Listen to the Choir of Lichfield Cathedral singing In the bleak midwinter here

In the bleak mid-winter … the Moat House in Tamworth in mid-winter snow

Tomorrow: ‘Christmas’ by John Betjeman.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

Christmas Poems (9): ’T’was the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore

Patrick Comerford

I think my choice of TS Eliot’s poem, ‘The Cultivation of Christmas Trees,’ as my Christmas poem yesterday reminded me of the need, even at my age, to see Christmas through the eyes of a child too.

This morning I have chosen ’T’was the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore. Christmas Eve might, at first, seem a more appropriate day for reading this poem. But I thought some readers might like it a day early, and I was reminded too that this poem was first published on 23 December, 188 years ago, in 1823.

You could say that when this poem was first published in 1823 and it was an overnight success. However, it was another 21 years before that Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863) claimed in 1844 that he was the author of this poem when it was published in collection of his poetry.

Clement Clarke Moore came from a prominent Episcopalian family and his father, Benjamin Moore (1748-1816), was the second Episcopal Bishop of New York and was famous for officiating at the inauguration of George Washington and as President of Columbia University.

Two years before he wrote this poem, Clement Clarke Moore was appointed Professor of Biblical Learning at the General Theological Seminary in New York in 1821, and he held this post he held until 1850. He had already compiled a two-volume Hebrew and English Lexicon (1809), and his collection of poems was published while he was still an academic theologian in 1844.

The grounds on which the General Theological Seminary now stands were his gift to the Church: he donated an apple orchard consisting of 66 tracts to the Diocese of New York for use as a seminary, and building work began in 1827. He also gave land on Ninth and 20th Street for Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church.

Today, he is best remembered, not as a theologian or Biblical scholar but as the author of ‘A Visit from St Nicholas,’ which has since become better known as ‘’T’was the Night Before Christmas.’

Moore wrote this poem for his children and it was first published anonymously in the Sentinel in Troy, New York, on 23 December 1823. It has since been acclaimed as “arguably the best-known verses ever written by an American.” It was reprinted frequently in the years that followed without any acknowledgment of an author. Moore first claimed he was the author of the poem when it was included in an 1844 collection of his poetry at the insistence of his children.

‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ is largely responsible for the images of Santa Claus that have been popular in the English-speaking world and further afield since the mid-19th century, including his appearance, the night of his visit, his mode of transport, the number and names of his reindeer, and the tradition of bringing toys to children.

Now the tradition of reading ‘’Twas the Night before Christmas’ to children on Christmas Eve is one found throughout the world.

T’was the Night before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore

’T’was the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ’ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

Tomorrow: ‘In the Bleak Mid-Winter,’ by Christina Rossetti.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

Christmas Poems (8): The Cultivation of Christmas Trees by TS Eliot

‘The child wonders at the Christmas Tree’ TS Eliot ... a Christmas Tree with Christmas presents on the floor, in Castle Durrow, Co Laois, last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

The Christmas trees are up so long and decorated, at home and at work, that they are in danger of beginning to shed, even before Christmas Day dawns. Yet, they are still selling Christmas trees outside Rathfarnham Shopping Centre. Meanwhile, the mayor of Nazareth Illit, an Israeli town with a small Arab Christian minority, is maintaining the ban on the public display of Christmas trees he enforced last year.

Nazareth Illit is next to Nazareth, the childhood home of Jesus Christ, where the population is about one-third Christian. “Nazareth Illit is a Jewish city and it will not happen – not this year and not next year, so long as I am a mayor,” the Mayor, Shimon Gapso, said last year. And, true to form, the ban remains in place this year too, according to a report by Rebecca Greenfield on the news website Atlantic Wire earlier this week.

The town’s Arab Christians accuse the mayor of racism. “The racism of not putting a tree up is nothing compared to the real racism that we experience here,” said Aziz Dahdal, a Christian resident of Nazareth Illit.

“When we asked the mayor to put up a Christmas tree in the Arab neighbourhoods of Nazareth Illit, he said this is a Jewish town, not a mixed town,” said Shukri Awawdeh, a Muslim Arab member of the town council. “We told him that decorating a tree is just to share the happiness and cheer with other people in the town.”

So my choice of Christmas poem this morning is ‘The Cultivation of Christmas Trees,’ by TS Eliot. Eliot began life as a Unitarian, but became an Anglo-Catholic after moving to London. I wrote yesterday of how he was dismissive of Coleridge, who had been a Unitarian before returning to the Anglicanism of his birth, describing him as a mere “researcher into religious emotion.”

TS Eliot’s former offices with Faber and Faber at 24 Russell Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Eliot’s poem ‘The Cultivation of Christmas Trees’ was first published on 26 October 1954 as part of a newer series of his ‘Ariel Poems’ by Faber & Faber, and was illustrated by David Jones. This poem is numbered A66 in Gallup’s bibliography of Eliot’s works.

Christmas has a significance throughout Eliot’s work, not only in the Ariel poems, but in his play Murder in the Cathedral, where Thomas à Becket preaches his Christmas sermon.

The four earlier Ariel poems – ‘Journey of the Magi’ (1927), ‘A Song for Simeon’ (1928), ‘Animula’ (1929) and ‘Marina’ (1930) – are Eliot’s first poems of declared Christian belief and were published in successive years as illustrated Christmas greetings by his London publishers and employers Faber & Gwyer (later Faber and Faber). They are severe and rigorous examinations of the significance of Christmas. The original four could hardly be described as “festive.”

But ‘The Cultivation of Christmas Trees’ relents a little in this respect. When I first read this poem, I thought it was a more lightweight and less serious poem than the other Ariel poems or other well-known poems by Eliot, such as ‘The Waste Land’ (1922), ‘Ash Wednesday’ (1930), and the poems in ‘The Four Quartets’ (1935-1942) Yet, in many ways, this poem is marked by its wry understatement.

This poem is much later and is less well-known than ‘Journey of the Magi’ or ‘A Song for Simeon’ (1928). In those poems Eliot presents the Nativity not as a joyous event but in the context of the ‘bitter agony’ of death that is inextricably linked with this birth.

The speaker in ‘Journey of the Magi’ is one of the Magi, now elderly, for whom Christ’s birth represents his own death but is uncertain of the significance of what he has witnessed. In ‘A Song for Simeon’ the narrator is also an old man, Simeon, who sees, understands and embraces the significance of the new-born child presented in the Temple. In many ways, ‘Animula’ is the bleakest of the Ariel poems, tracing human life from birth to death, while recalling in the child ‘taking pleasure/ In the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree.’ The fourth poem, ‘Marina,’ seems to be the most hopeful, in which Eliot recalls the ‘scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog,’ so that the boat carries hints of Christmas trees, as this life is only a foretaste, ‘Living to live in a world of time beyond me.’

Eliot returns to the Christmas theme in ‘The Cultivation of Christmas Trees’ and in this poem he turns to the meaning of Advent and Christmas that can so easily get lost in the panic about chores, turkeys and cards:

Because the beginning shall remind us of the end
And the first coming of the second coming.

Here, we find echoes of Eliot’s opening words in ‘East Coker’, the second of ‘The Four Quartets’: “In my beginning is my end,” and of his closing words: “In my end is my beginning.”

While ‘A Song for Simeon’ and ‘Journey of the Magi’ address specifically Biblical and theological themes, ‘The Cultivation of Christmas Trees’ deals directly with this holiday season, and is filled with contemporary observations of popular devotions and rituals that we all love at this time of the year.

By the time he wrote this poem, Eliot was 66 years old, but he imagines himself as a more elderly man looking back at the Christmases of his childhood, recapturing his own childhood memories as he anticipates Christmas morning.

Eliot seems to strike the appropriate tone when he discusses the proper celebration and meaning of Christmas. He advocates the innocence and simplicity of a sentimental celebration of Christmas, filled with a beautiful tree, a bountiful feast, and new toys. The spirit of the season is not idolatry, but is a truly Christian “happiness and cheer.” This is a season of cheer and goodwill, a season filled with the warmth and joy that Christ’s coming into the world should inspire in a loveless world that is in need of saving.

Here we read Eliot’s last poetic comments on the mystery of the incarnation and on the mystery of life itself. The same mystery that in majesty creates the child’s wonder also brings the soul and the world to judgment.

The first sentence of the poem introduces several possible attitudes towards Christmas, of whom the childish is the one Eliot wants us to give priority. The second sentence, which constitutes the rest of the poem – thanks to three colons, a semicolon, and several sets of parentheses – tells the reader how Christmas should be viewed and experienced.

‘... the child/For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel/Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree/Is not only a decoration, but an angel’ (TS Eliot) ... an angel atop a Christmas Tree in the crypt in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, earlier this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Eliot now pictures vividly the various trappings of Christmas and the wonder they should inspire from childhood onward, while warning against “bored habituation,” fatigue, tedium, awareness of death, consciousness of failure and

... the piety of the convert
Which may be tainted with a self-conceit.

Then, in parentheses, he recalls his own memories of Saint Lucy’s Day, which he may have been part of his American childhood experiences, but is difficult for readers in this part of Europe to grasp. He clearly wants to link the celebration of this day and its inclusion of children with the celebration of Christmas, and paints a visual image by evoking the flame of light in darkness and of brave martyrdom when he speaks of “her carol, and her crown of fire.”

Saint Lucy was a young woman in the third century who maintained unflinching faith in the face of martyrdom. Her name comes from the Latin for “light,” and some traditions say she was miraculously protected from being burned alive. On her feast day on 13 December, Scandinavian girls dress as Saint Lucy, wearing crowns of candles and singing carols about her.

Eliot closes the poem with a reminder of the true significance of Christmas and the future. Christ’s birth leads to his death and resurrection, and to the founding of the Church, when “fear came upon every soul.” His first coming at his incarnation also foreshadows his second coming in judgment:

Because the beginning shall remind us of the end
And the first coming of the second coming.

‘The Cultivation of Christmas Trees’ was published in 1954 and illustrated by David Jones

The Cultivation of Christmas Trees by TS Eliot.

There are several attitudes towards Christmas,
Some of which we may disregard:
The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,
The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),
And the childish – which is not that of the child
For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel
Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree
Is not only a decoration, but an angel.

The child wonders at the Christmas Tree:
Let him continue in the spirit of wonder
At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;
So that the glittering rapture, the amazement
Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree,
So that the surprises, delight in new possessions
(Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell),
The expectation of the goose or turkey
And the expected awe on its appearance,

So that the reverence and the gaiety
May not be forgotten in later experience,
In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium,
The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure,
Or in the piety of the convert
Which may be tainted with a self-conceit
Displeasing to God and disrespectful to children
(And here I remember also with gratitude
St.Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):

So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas
(By “eightieth” meaning whichever is last)
The accumulated memories of annual emotion
May be concentrated into a great joy
Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion
When fear came upon every soul:
Because the beginning shall remind us of the end
And the first coming of the second coming.

Tomorrow: ‘’T’was the Night Before Christmas’ by Clement Clarke Moore.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

Christmas poems (7): A Christmas Carol by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ was set to music by Stainer and Bramley and included in their collection ‘Christmas Carols New and Old’ in 1871

Patrick Comerford

My choice of Christmas poem this morning is ‘A Christmas Carol,’ by the English poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). This poem is sometimes known also by its opening line, ‘The shepherds went their hasty way.’ The poem was written in 1799, but it may have been largely forgotten but for its inclusion in a collection of carols in 1871 that revived carol singing in Victorian England.

I suppose most of us when we were at school read some of Coleridge’s better-known poems, including ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and ‘Kubla Khan.’ Although his work as a philosopher and a literary critic is forgotten by many, we still use many of the concepts he coined, such as “suspension of disbelief,” and we still quote many of the phrases. Even those who have never read ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ are familiar with images in it, including the metaphor of an albatross around one’s neck, the words “water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink” (usually misquoted as “but not a drop to drink”), and the phrase “a sadder and a wiser man” (usually misquoted as “a sadder but wiser man”).

I had forgotten Coleridge’s contribution to English poetry and his theological influence until recent visits both to both Jesus College, Cambridge, where he was an undergraduate from 1791 to 1794, and Calne in Wiltshire, where he lived with the Morgan family from 1814 to 1816 while he was writing his Biographia Literaria.

Coleridge, who was one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England, was born in 1772 in Ottery St Mary in Devon, the youngest of 14 children of the local vicar, the Revd John Coleridge, who was also headmaster of the local grammar school. Throughout his life, Coleridge would idealise his father, who always wanted him to be a clergyman, as a pious and innocent priest.

After his father died in 1781, Coleridge was sent to school at Christ’s Hospital in London, where he became friends with Charles Lamb. There he also came to love the classics, the Greek poets, Shakespeare and Milton.

Seeking to realise his father’s dream that he too would become a priest, Coleridge entered Jesus College, Cambridge in 1791, where he gained one of the Rustat scholarships for the sons of clergymen, and there he initially focused on preparing for ordination. As an undergraduate, Coleridge won a distinguished medal for an ode on the slave trade. After running away briefly to enlist in the army, he was readmitted to Jesus College, but he never completed his degree and left Cambridge in 1794.

In 1795, the same year he first met William Wordsworth, he married Sarah Fricker in Saint Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. From 1797 to 1798, he lived in a cottage in Nether Stowey, Somerset and during those two fruitful years he wrote ‘The Rime of The Ancient Mariner,’ ‘Kubla Khan,’ the first part of ‘Christabel,’ and his much-praised “conversation” poems, ‘This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,’ ‘Frost and Midnight,’ and ‘The Nightingale.’

Despite his Anglican upbringing, Coleridge was by then an occasional preacher in Unitarian chapels, although his first sermon in a chapel in Bath is said to have put to flight a very thin congregation. He preached too in Nottingham and Birmingham, and he briefly took over from the Revd Joshua Toulmin at Mary Street Unitarian Chapel in Taunton while Toulmin grieved over the drowning of his daughter Jane. “These events cut cruelly into the hearts of old men,” he wrote, “but the good Dr Toulmin bears it like the true practical Christian, – there is indeed a tear in his eye, but that eye is lifted up to the Heavenly Father.”

Coleridge thought of becoming a Unitarian minister, but Josiah Wedgwood sent him a draft for £100, “to prevent the necessity of his going into the ministry.” After some hesitation, Coleridge returned the £100, and in January 1798 he was invited to become the Unitarian minister in Shrewsbury. Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood then offered him an annuity of £150 from on condition that he devoted himself entirely to philosophy and poetry. He hesitated once again, but eventually accepted their offer and separated from the Unitarians, although letters written in 1802 show that he still held many Unitarian views.

Meanwhile, in 1798, Coleridge and Wordsworth published a joint volume of poetry, Lyrical Ballads, which is the starting point for the English romantic movement. That autumn, they travelled to Germany, where Coleridge was introduced to the writings of Immanuel Kant, Jakob Boehme and Spinoza.

In 1799, Coleridge wrote the poem ‘A Christmas Carol,’ my choice of Christmas poem for this morning. Around 1800, he settled with his family and friends at Keswick in the Lake District, where Wordsworth was already living. In 1802, he wrote to a Unitarian friend: “My creed is very simple – my confession of Faith very brief. I approve altogether & embrace entirely the Religion of the Quakers, but exceedingly dislike the sect … By Quakerism I understand the opinions of George Fox …” By 1803, he was basing his doctrine of God on the work of the Irish theologian John Scotus Erigena.

From 1804, he travelled in Italy, Sicily and Malta, hoping leaving the damp climate of Britain would improve his health and working for a while as a minor government official in Malta. But by then his opium addiction was destroying his life: he separated from his wife Sarah in 1808, quarrelled with Wordsworth in 1810, lost part of his annuity in 1811, and put himself under the care of a Dr Daniel in Bath in 1814. There were failed attempts at publishing newspapers, and he ran up mounting debts, despite an increasing reputation as a literary critic.

A blue plaque on Bentley House in Church Street, Calne, recalls the time when Coleridge lived here almost 200 years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In 1815, he moved from Bristol to stay in Bentley House in Church Street, Calne, with John Morgan, an old friend who offered him “unexampled assiduity and kindness.” The former village of Quemerford, which gives the Comerford family its name, is only a short walk from Church Street in Calne.

Joseph Priestley’s House on the Green in Calne, where he lived while working for Lord Shelburne (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

For many years, Joseph Priestley lived at No 19, The Green, Calne, and was the Unitarian minister there. Coleridge lived in Calne for a great part of 1815 and 1816, there he completed his Lay Sermons and Biographia Literaria, and attempted to write some plays. When the poet Byron asked him for another tragedy, he dictated ‘Zapolya to Morgan in Calne. Byron recommended Zapolya to John Murray, and he published it as a Christmas Tale in two parts in 1817.

That year, Coleridge also included ‘The Virgin’s Cradle Hymn,’ a translation of a short Latin lullaby, in his Sibylline Leaves. But by then Coleridge was depressed and alienated from his family. He finally moved to Highgate in 1817, and there he lived for the rest of his life. In his final years he closely adhered to the Anglicanism of his birth, and the bright young men from Cambridge and London who later became the leaders of the Broad Church movement, including FD Maurice, John Sterling and Connop Thirlwall, later Bishop of St David’s, came to Highgate to hear him at length. He died there in 1834.

His poems influenced all the major poets of his age, and his influence on Wordsworth is particularly important. Despite his youthful Unitarianism, Coleridge later turned to the writings of the English Reformers and the Caroline Divines, and his reading of Richard Hooker led him to declare “the Trinity is the only Form, in which an Idea of God is Possible – unless indeed it be a Spinozistic or World God.”

TS Eliot, who began life as Unitarian and became an Anglo-Catholic after moving to London, dismisses Coleridge as a mere “researcher into religious emotion.” But Coleridge brought English theology out of the 18th century into the romantic era, according to David Pym, and FD Maurice, James Martineau, Charles Kingsley and many others were indebted to Coleridge’s religious thinking.

‘A Christmas Carol’ was written in 1799. With its stated belief in the virgin birth and salvation, it is difficult to reconcile this poem with Coleridge’s youthful Unitarianism. But its imagery provides, perhaps, a hint of Coleridge’s eventual return to the Anglicanism of his birth.

Later, Coleridge also translated ‘The Virgin’s Cradle Hymn,’ a short lullaby he collected in Germany and published in his Sibylline Leaves in 1817. Coleridge recalled copying the Latin text from a “print of the Blessed Virgin in a Catholic village in Germany.”

Dormi, Jesu! Mater ridet
Quae tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi, Jesu! blandule!
Si non dormis, Mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat,
Blande, veni, somnule.

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:
Mother sits beside thee smiling;
Sleep, my darling, tenderly!
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth:
Come, soft slumber, balmily!

The text is from a collection of devotional Flemish engravings by Hieronymus Wierix, and has inspired a number of modern choral and vocal musical settings.

When ‘A Christmas Carol’ was set to music by Sir John Stainer and Canon Henry Ramsden Bramley in their collection Christmas Carols New and Old (London: Novello, Ewer & Co, 1871), they omitted verse 7, and they changed the words “The milk rushed faster to her breast” in verse 3 to: “A mother’s love o’erflowed her breast.”

Stainer is best remembered for his Crucifixion, but this book by Stainer and Bramley was largely responsible for the Victorian revival of the Christmas carol, according to Percy Dearmer. It included Stainer’s arrangements of what have since became the standard versions of ‘What child is this,’ ‘God rest you merry gentlemen,’ ‘Good King Wenceslas,’ ‘The First Nowell’ and ‘I saw three ships,’ as well as Coleridge’s ‘The Virgin’s Cradle Hymn’ and ‘A Christmas Carol.’

I have never heard either Coleridge’s ‘A Christmas Carol,’ or his ‘The Virgin’s Cradle Hymn,’ being sung by carollers or in church. But it is part of an interesting story in English theology and of the interesting story of the revival of carols in England.

Jesus College, Cambridge, where Coleridge was an undergraduate, although he never received a degree (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A Christmas Carol by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I

The shepherds went their hasty way,
And found the lowly stable-shed
Where the Virgin-Mother lay:
And now they checked their eager tread,
For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,
A Mother’s song the Virgin-Mother sung.

II

They told her how a glorious light,
Streaming from a heavenly throng.
Around them shone, suspending night!
While sweeter than a mother’s song,
Blest Angels heralded the Saviour’s birth,
Glory to God on high! and Peace on Earth.

III

She listened to the tale divine,
And closer still the Babe she pressed:
And while she cried, the Babe is mine!
The milk rushed faster to her breast:
Joy rose within her, like a summer’s morn;
Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.

IV

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,
Poor, simple, and of low estate!
That strife should vanish, battle cease,
O why should this thy soul elate?
Sweet Music’s loudest note, the Poet’s story,
Didst thou ne’er love to hear of fame and glory?

V

And is not War a youthful king,
A stately Hero clad in mail?
Beneath his footsteps laurels spring;
Him Earth’s majestic monarchs hail
Their friends, their playmate! and his bold bright eye
Compels the maiden’s love-confessing sigh.

VI

Tell this in some more courtly scene,
To maids and youths in robes of state!
I am a woman poor and mean,
And wherefore is my soul elate.
War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled,
That from the aged father’s tears his child!

VII

A murderous fiend, by fiends adored,
He kills the sire and starves the son;
The husband kills, and from her board
Steals all his widow’s toil had won;
Plunders God’s world of beauty; rends away
All safety from the night, all comfort from the day.

VIII

Then wisely is my soul elate,
That strife should vanish, battle cease:
I’m poor and of low estate,
The Mother of the Prince of Peace.
Joy rises in me, like a summer’s morn:
Peace, Peace on Earth! The Prince of Peace is born!

Tomorrow: ‘The Cultivation of Christmas Trees’ by TS Eliot.

Canon Patrick Comerford is lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral.

Christmas Poems (6): Samuel’s Johnson’s Messiah

Snow on snow … Lichfield Cathedral seen last Chrtistmas from the gardens of Darwin House by Michael Fabricant, MP for Lichfield

Patrick Comerford

My choice of Christmas poem this morning is the poem that Samuel Johnson translated as Messiah. The original poem was written by Alexander Pope (1688-1744), and I first heard of the poem and its translation in Johnson’s own home city, Lichfield.

As an undergraduate at Pembroke College, Oxford, Samuel Johnson was asked by his tutor to produce a Latin translation of Pope’s Messiah as a Christmas exercise in 1728. This was 13 years before Handel composed his Messiah in 1741, and 14 years before its first performance, in Dublin in 1742. So Pope and Johnson were orihinal in their choice of title for this work.

Johnson completed half of the translation in one afternoon and the rest the following morning. The poem was finished quickly because Johnson was hoping for patronage that would help him overcome the financial difficulties he was suffering as an undergraduate at Pembroke.

After Johnson finished the poem, it was sent to his home in Lichfield, where his father Michael Johnson, a bookseller, immediately printed the work. Michael Johnson had already published the translation before Samuel Johnson ever sent a copy to Alexander Pope. It is said Johnson become “very angry” and said “if it had not been his Father [who had done this] he would have cut his throat.”

Samuel Johnson’s birthplace in Breadmarket Street, now the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum … Johnson was born here in 1709, and his father ran a bookshop from the house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The poem later appeared in a Miscellany of Poems (1731), edited by John Husbands, a Pembroke tutor, and this is the earliest surviving publication of any of Johnson’s writings. Husbands’s Miscellany has a list of subscribers, including half of the enrolled students at Pembroke.

Johnson’s translation was first was brought to Pope’s attention by Charles Arbuthnot, the son of Pope’s friend John Arbuthnot. According to Sir John Hawkins, Pope praised the work when he claimed that he could not tell if it was “the original” or not. But, while the poem brought praise to Johnson, it never brought him the material benefit he hoped for.

Pope’s Messiah deals with Virgil’s Fourth Ecologue, which was said to predict the birth of Christ. The poem merges the prophecy of Isaiah about the Messiah, with wording that echoes Virgil. Johnson’s translation into Latin relies on Virgil directly and incorporates more of the Eclogue’s language.

Messiah, Sacred Eclogue, in Imitation of Virgil’s Pollio, by Alexander Pope (1688-1744), 1712

Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus and th’ Aonian maids,
Delight no more – O thou my voice inspire
Who touched Isaiah’s hallowed lips with fire!
Rapt into future times, the bard begun:
A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a Son!
From Jesse’s root behold a branch arise,
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies:
Th’ ethereal spirit o’er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic Dove.
Ye Heavens! from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower!
The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid,
From storm a shelter, and from heat a shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient frauds shall fail;
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;
Peace o’er the world her olive wand extend,
And white-robed Innocence from Heaven descend.
Swift fly the years, and rise th’ expected morn!
Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!
See, Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing spring:
See lofty Lebanon his head advance,
See nodding forests on the mountains dance:
See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise,
And Carmel’s flowery top perfumes the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers:
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears!
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim th’ approaching Deity.
Lo, Earth receives him from the bending skies!
Sink down, ye mountains! and ye valleys, rise!
With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay!
Be smooth, ye rocks! ye rapid floods, give way!
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold:
Hear him, ye deaf! and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eyeball pour the day:
’Tis he th’ obstructed paths of sound shall clear
And bid new music charm th’ unfolding ear:
The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear.
From every face he wipes off every tear.
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound.
And Hell’s grim tyrant feel th’ eternal wound.
As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pasture, and the purest air,
Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs,
By day o’ersees them, and by night protects;
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,
Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms:
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promised Father of the future age.
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,
Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o’er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield.
And the same hand that sowed, shall reap the field.
The swain in barren deserts with surprise
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon’s late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys, once perplexed with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn:
To leafless shrubs the flowery palms succeed,
And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.
The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead
And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead:
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim’s feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.
Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn:
See future sons and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend!
See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings,
And heaped with products of Sabean springs!
For thee Idumè’s spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir’s mountains glow.
See Heaven his sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising Sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O’erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine
Revealed, and God’s eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away!
But fixed his word, his saving power remains;
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!

Christmas in Lichfield Cathedral

And what about Christmas this year in Samuel Johnson’s own Lichfield?

For the first time, the Christmas morning Eucharist in Lichfield Cathedral is to be broadcast live on BBC1 and the Cathedral is welcoming viewers to join this celebration of the Eucharist on 25 December. For weeks now, the cathedral community, including the cathedral staff and volunteers, have been working closely with the BBC to ensure that the day is a poignant, memorable and well-organised one.

From tomorrow [21 December 2011] until Saint Stephen’s Day [Monday, 26 December], the south door will be used by the BBC engineers and the community is asked to use the North West and North Transept doors during this time.

Meanwhile, the popular Candlelit Tours at Lichfield Cathedral resume next month [January 2012] as part of the winter programme. A candlelit tour includes a guided tour by an experienced cathedral guide, followed by mulled fruit punch and mince pies afterwards in the mediaeval beamed Old Stables, now the centre for cathedral visitors. The next tours are on 9, 10, 11 and 31 January, and tickets are priced at £12.50.

Tomorrow: ‘A Christmas Carol,’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

Christmas Poems (5): Christ’s Nativity by Henry Vaughan

‘And let once more, by mystic birth,/The Lord of life be born in earth’ … Henry Vaughan

Patrick Comerford

My fourth choice of poem for this Christmas season is ‘Christ’s Nativity’ by Henry Vaughan (1621-1695), a Welsh doctor and metaphysical poet. He is the major Welsh poet of the Commonwealth period, and there has been a renewed interest in his poetry in recent years because of the revival of interest in the poetry of John Donne and his followers.

Henry Vaughan and his twin brother the philosopher Thomas were the sons of Thomas Vaughan. They were born in 1621 in Newton-upon-Usk in Breconshire and the poet spent most of his life in the village of Llansantffraed, near Brecon, where he is also buried.

After attending a local school, Vaughan was sent to Jesus College, Oxford, but he abandoned his pursuit of a degree at Oxford to seek a career in law. But that too was interrupted by the Civil War, and eventually he followed a career in medicine. Although no major Civil War battle was fought in Breconshire, but the effects of the war were deeply felt by Vaughan and his local community, and Vaughan lost his home at that time.

Vaughan took his literary inspiration from his native environment, and had deep love of the Welsh mountains and rivers. His most famous worksare Silex Scintillans(‘The Fiery Flint’), a collection of religious poems published in 1650, and Olor Iscanus (‘The Swan of Usk’), a collection of secular poetry, published the following year. Silex Scintillans was reprinted in 1655 with a second, additional part.

These two collections represent that crucial a period in Vaughan’s life, with allusions to debt and happy living. A fervent topic is the Civil War and he expresses satisfaction at being clean of “innocent blood.” Although he is thought to have been a royalist, his poems express contempt for all current authority and a lack of zeal for the royalist cause.

It appears Vaughan suffered a prolonged sickness that brought him much pain. He interprets this experience as an encounter with death and a wake-up call to his “misspent youth.”

This conversion is credited to the Welsh poet and priest George Herbert, and Vaughan claims that he is the least of Herbert’s many “pious converts.” During this period of his life, around 1650, Vaughan adopts the motto “moriendo, revixi” or: “By dying, I gain new life.”

Vaughan remained deeply indebted to George Herbert, who provided him with a model for his new-found spiritual life and literary career, in which he displayed “spiritual quickening and the gift of gracious feeling” derived from Herbert.

Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1886), Archbishop of Dublin (1864-1884), suggests that “as a divine Vaughan may be inferior [to Herbert], but as a poet he is certainly superior.”

Vaughan’s inspired religious poetry, on which his reputation chiefly rests, is reminiscent of Herbert’s The Temple. Vaughan was then nearly 30 years younger than George Herbert, whom he consciously and intentionally imitates, but he is now considered one of the major metaphysical poets for his works pondering one’s personal relationship with God.

In his poetry, Vaughan was faithful to the themes of the Anglican Church and religious festivals, but found his true voice in the more mystical themes of eternity, communion, nature, and childhood. An example is found in fragment of one of his poems, ‘The World’:

I saw eternity the other night
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright,
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years
Driv’n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow moved, In which the world
And all her train were hurl’d.

Henry Vaughan’s gravestone in Saint Bridget’s Churchyard, Llansantffraed, Powys

Henry Vaughan died on 23 April 1695 at the age of 74. He is buried in the churchyard of Saint Bridget’s, Llansantffraed, Powys. On his gravestone are his coat of arms consisting of a chevron between three boys’ heads, each with a snakes entwined about the neck. On the stone are words from Vaughan’s poem, ‘The Mount of Olives.’ Fifty years before his death, in his poem ‘To the river Isca,’ he wrote:

When I am layd to rest by thy streams,
And my sun sets, where first it sprang in beams
I’le leave behind me such a large, kind light
As shall redeem thee from oblivious night.

Each year, on the Sunday nearest to the anniversary of his death, a memorial service is held in Saint Bride’s Church, followed by a graveside service and the laying of a wreath on his grave.

In 1650, Vaughan was concerned with the consequences of the rise of the Cromwellian government, and with it the loss of a Visible Church in which he believed. “The consequences of the Revolution which most offended Vaughan,” Christopher Hill writes, "were those affecting religion. It had been tainted, poisoned, had become ‘instead of physic, a disease.’ The church had been despoiled and religion exiled.”

Vaughan endorses the Laudian approach to the Anglican liturgy in poems such as ‘The Dressing,’ ‘The Feast,’ ‘The Throne,’ and ‘Christ’s Nativity,’ which also demonstrates his forthright opposition to the Puritan demands for the removal of Christmas from the calendar of the Church.

The presence of his poetic voice, in those years immediately after the forced abolition of Anglicanism as the church of the land, was an effective witness that the promises of God still apply to those who keep the faith in his promises in such a time. And so, my chosen poem this morning is ‘Christ’s Nativity,’ from Vaughan’s most famous work, his Silex Scintillans.

Christ’s Nativity by Henry Vaughan

Awake, glad heart! get up and sing!
It is the birth-day of thy King.
Awake! awake!
The Sun doth shake
Light from his locks, and all the way
Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

Awake, awake! hark how th’ wood rings;
Winds whisper, and the busy springs
A concert make;
Awake! awake!
Man is their high-priest, and should rise
To offer up the sacrifice.

I would I were some bird, or star,
Flutt’ring in woods, or lifted far
Above this inn
And road of sin!
Then either star or bird should be
Shining or singing still to thee.

I would I had in my best part
Fit rooms for thee! or that my heart
Were so clean as
Thy manger was!
But I am all filth, and obscene;
Yet, if thou wilt, thou canst make clean.

Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no more
This leper haunt and soil thy door!
Cure him, ease him,
O release him!
And let once more, by mystic birth,
The Lord of life be born in earth.

Tomorrow: ‘Messiah’ by Samuel Johnson

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

‘Rejoice! ... the time of grace has come’

With the Precentor of Christ Church Cathedral, Canon Peter Campion, and the Dean, the Very Revd Dermot Dunne, in the Chapter House before this afternoon’s Festival of Five Lessons and Carols

Patrick Comerford

No, it’s not true. I’m not ‘all-carolled-out’ and I’m nowhere near that state either.

We’re now into the last week before Christmas. The Gospel reading this morning [18 December 2011] was Saint Luke’s account of the annunciation and the Virgin Mary’s response, which was a mixture of obedience and shock, followed by her visit to her cousin Elizabeth.

Before the Gospel reading we lit the fourth and last candle on the Advent Wreath, which recalls the Virgin Mary. The preacher at the Sung Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, was my colleague, the Revd Dr Maurice Elliott, Director of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute.

Over coffee in the crypt afterwards, there was much talk of Friday’s fundraising auction for the cathedral in Durrow, and the post-auction Reception, Dinner and Ball in Castle Durrow. Final figures have yet to be confirmed, but some sources say up to €100,000 may have been raised at the auction.

Five us went to lunch in the Larder in Parliament Street, and after a short walk around the Temple Bar area, rummaging in second-hand bookshops, I returned to Christ Church Cathedral for the Festival of Five Lessons and Carols.

The cathedral was packed with over 200 people at this traditional service this afternoon.

The processional hymn was Cecil Frances Alexander’s ‘Once in royal David’s city,’ with a solo opening verse, and the opening prayer by the Dean, the Very Revd Dermot Dunne, was an adaptation of the Bidding Prayer written by Eric Milner-White while he was Dean of King’s College, Cambridge, for the Service of Nine Lessons with Carols there.

The other carols and hymns included ‘Born in a stable so bare’ by John Rutter; ‘Gaudete, Gaudete’ (to a setting by by Bob Chilcott); ‘When he is king we will give him the king’s gifts’ by Bruce Blunt and Peter Warlock; ‘Good people all, this Christmas time’ by Timothy Noone; ‘O little town of Bethlehem’ by Phillips Brooks; ‘On Christmas night all Christians sing’ (the Sussex Carol), ‘Unto us is born a son’ (translated by George R. Woodward and arranged by David Wilcocks), ‘Ding Dong! Merrily on high’ (also written by George R. Woodward); and ‘Hark! The herald angels sing’ by Charles Wesley.

There were five readings, and I was asked as a chapter member to read the fifth reading, the opening of Saint John’s Gospel (John 1: 1-14).

‘Gaudete’ probably dates from the 16th century. The song was published in Piae Cantiones in 1582, but no music was given for the verses, and the standard tune comes from older liturgical books.

The version I have come to love became popular in the early 1970s, when I was also first introduced to English folk rock while I was in the English Midlands and writing for the Lichfield Mercury.

After Bob Johnson heard Gaudete at a folk carol service at his father-in-law’s church in Cambridge, Steeleye Span recorded Gaudete in 1972 on their album Below the Salt.

Steeleye Span was formed in 1969, and they often performed as the opening act for Jethro Tull. A year after recording Below the Salt, they had a Christmas hit single with Gaudete, when it made No 14 in the British charts in 1973. This was their first big breakthrough and it brought them onto Top of the Pops for the first time.

The reference in verse 3, which puzzled many fans at the time, is to the eastern gate of the city in Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 44: 2). The gate is a traditional symbol of Mary as virgin.

Since the mid-1970s, despite the change in their line-up and the loss at different times of names like Maddy Pryor and Gay and Terry Woods, Steeleye Span continues to include Gaudete as a concert encore, and it was published in 1992 in the New Oxford Book of Carols.

The original is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN9AJj9rtlk&feature=related But there are some more recent recordings at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBZ8v9L8444 and at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDc2FD-vy8M&feature=related

I hope to be at the Service of Nine Lessons with Carls in Christ Church Cathedral at 8 p.m. tomorrow evening [Monday 19 December 2011]. Meanwhile, let us rejoice in good memories, let us rejoice that Christmas is coming, and in the midst of the present economic gloom let us rejoice that the coming of Christ holds out the promise of hope, the promise of his Kingdom, that even in darkness the light of Christ shines on us all.

Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus
Ex Maria virginae, gaudete!

Tempus adest gratiæ.
Hoc quod optabamus;
Carmina lætitiæ
Devote reddamus.

Deus homo factus est,
Natura mirante;
Mundus renovatus est
A Christo regnante.

Ezechielis porta
Clausa pertransitur,
Unde lux est orta
Salus invenitur.

Ergo nostra contio
Psallat iam in lustro;
Benedicat Domino:
Salus Regi nostro.

Rejoice, rejoice! Christ is born
of the Virgin Mary: rejoice!

The time of grace has come
that we had prayed;
Hymns of joy
let us sing devoutly.

God is made man,
while nature wonders;
the world is made new
by Christ’s kingship.

Ezekiel’s doorway
once closed has been traversed;
whence the Light is come,
salvation has been found.

Therefore our assembly
must sing for purification,
Blessed be the Lord:
For our King’s salvation.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

Christmas Poems (4): Nativity by John Donne

John Donne ... “...for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free.”

Patrick Comerford

The poet and priest John Donne (1572-1631) is best remembered today for his lines:

No man is an island,
entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thine own
or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
for I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
for whom the bell tolls,
it tolls for thee. — John Donne, Meditation XVII

However, my choice of Christmas poem this morning is one of his lesser known poems, ‘Nativity.’

John Donne’s early career as a civil servant was hampered by his Roman Catholic leanings, then destroyed by the British aristocrat whose daughter he married against her father’s will. Like George Herbert, who featured in my choice of Christmas poem yesterday, John Donne he came to the attention of King James I. In the case of Donne, though, the king found him a prominent position in the Church of England, where he quickly earned respect for his writing.

John Donne (1572-1631) was the most outstanding of the English metaphysical poets. He was born in London to a prominent Roman Catholic family – his mother was related to Thomas More – but he became an Anglican in the 1590s. He studied at both Oxford and Cambridge, but he could not take a degree at either university because of his Roman Catholicism – although he would later received the degree DD from Cambridge.

He then studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, London, and was expected to embark on a legal or diplomatic career. In 1598, he was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, Keeper of the Great Seal, in 1598. But his secret marriage in 1601 to Egerton’s niece, Anne More, resulted in his dismissal and a brief imprisonment. When he wrote to his wife to tell her about his dismissal, he wrote after his name: “ John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done.” After his release, he made a meagre living as a lawyer, and also served as an MP in 1601 and again in 1614.

Donne’s principal literary accomplishments during this period were Divine Poems (1607), La Corona (1610), from which today’s choice of poem is selected, and the prose work Biathanatos (ca 1608), which was published posthumously in 1644.

In 1615, Donne was ordained an Anglican priest and later that year he was appointed a royal chaplain. In 1621, he became Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London. There he attained eminence as a preacher for his sermons, regarded by many as the most brilliant and eloquent of his time

Donne preached what was called his own funeral sermon, “Death’s Duel” just a few weeks before he died in London on 31 March 1631

Donne is a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period, his works are notable for their realistic and sensual style, and they include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons.

His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially when he is compared with his contemporaries. His masculine, ingenious style is characterised by abrupt openings, paradoxes, dislocations, argumentative structure, and “conceits” – images that yoke things seemingly unlike. These features, combined with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax, and his tough eloquence were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques.

His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of contemporary English society and he met that knowledge with sharp criticism. Another important theme in Donne’s poetry was the idea of true religion, which he spent much time considering and theorising. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic poems and love poems, and is particularly famous for his mastery of metaphysical conceits.

Some of Donne’s poetry is sensual for his time – many critics attribute those verses to his years as a student. A few of his poems apparently express his love for his wife, and a number express religious sentiment using terms and imagery that are nearly as passionate as his love poems.

Rising to prominence about a generation after Shakespeare, Donne wrote at a time when “wit,” or a kind of poetic cleverness, was highly valued. He delighted in writing complicated metaphors (called “conceits”) that often make his poems exercise the mind more than the heart.

Donne also delighted in imagined “contraction” or shrinkage of space and time – a lifetime into moments, or all of the world’s empires into his lovers’ eyes.

Nowhere in his “Divine” poems is that “contraction” more poignant than in the sonnet, ‘Nativity,’ my choice of Christmas poem this morning. In this poem, the Infinite becomes small enough to be contained in the most private of all chambers. Donne also points out with charming irony that God pitied us so much that he became vulnerable enough to elicit our pity toward him.

This early poem by Donne comes, from the collection La Corona (1610). The key to its understanding lies in contrasting the opening line “Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,” with the contradictory “how He/Which fills all place, yet none holds Him.”

The Nativity Donne presents here is an historical reference, a few moments in time, standing for a message which is timeless and universal. The paradox moves in both time and space.

The image of tight confinement figures often in Donne’s writings, poetical and theological, and its significance is unfolded best here: “We are all conceived in close Prison; in our Mothers wombs, we are close Prisoners all; when we are borne, we are borne but to the liberty of the house; Prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of Execution, to death” (Easter Sunday 1619, Sermons, vol. 2, p. 107).

But the message of the Nativity, says Donne, is a message of purpose and direction on this path tread by endless humans across the ages: “Divers men may walke by the Sea side, and the same beames of the Sonne giving light to them all, one gathereth by the benefit of that light pebbles, or speckled shells, for curious vanitie, and another gathers precious Pearle, or medicinall Ambar, by the same light. So the common light of reason illumines us all; but one imployes this light upon the searching of impertinent vanities, another by a better use of the same light, finds out the Mysteries of Religion; and when he hath found them, loves them, not for the lights sake, but for the naturall and true worth of the thing it self.”

This is a “supernaturall light of faith and grace,” he writes, that made its appearance at the Nativity, but it is a light of reason that enables humankind both to understand its maker and itself (Christmas Day 1621, Sermons, vol. 3, p. 359).

Nativity by John Donne

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment,
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod’s jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

Tomorrow: ‘Christ’s Nativity’ by Henry Vaughan.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin