Category

Christmas

Showing 1-20 of 55 results
Filter Results
  • Poem

    The Same City

    By Terrance Hayes
    The rain falling on a night   
        in mid-December,
    I pull to my father’s engine   
        wondering how long I’ll remember   
    this. His car is dead. He connects   
        jumper cables to his battery,   
    then to mine without looking in   
        at me and the child. Water...
  • Poem

    Help Wanted

    By Timothy Tocher
    Santa needs new reindeer.
    The first bunch has grown old.
    Dasher has arthritis;
    Comet hates the cold.
    Prancer’s sick of staring
    at Dancer’s big behind.
    Cupid married Blitzen
    and Donder lost his mind.
    Dancer’s mad at Vixen
    for stepping on his toes.
    Vixen’s being thrown out—
    she laughed at Rudolph’s nose.
    If...
  • Poem

    The Cremation of Sam McGee

    By Robert W. Service
    There are strange things done in the midnight sun
          By the men who moil for gold;
    The Arctic trails have their secret tales
          That would make your blood run cold;
    The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
          But the queerest they ever did see
    Was that...
  • Poem

    A Visit from St. Nicholas

    By Clement Clarke Moore
    'Twas 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...
  • Poem

    The Oxen

    By Thomas Hardy
    Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
    “Now they are all on their knees,”
    An elder said as we sat in a flock
    By the embers in hearthside ease.

    We pictured the meek mild creatures where
    They dwelt in their strawy pen,
    Nor did it occur...
  • Poem

    December 26

    By Kenn Nesbitt
    A BB gun.
    A model plane.
    A basketball.
    A ’lectric train.
    A bicycle.
    A cowboy hat.
    A comic book.
    A baseball bat.
    A deck of cards.
    A science kit.
    A racing car.
    A catcher’s mitt.
    So that’s my list
    of everything
    that Santa Claus
    forgot to bring.
  • Poem

    December Substitute

    By Kenn Nesbitt
    Our substitute is strange because
    he looks a lot like Santa Claus.
    In fact, the moment he walked in
    we thought that he was Santa’s twin.

    We wouldn’t think it quite so weird,
    if it were just his snowy beard.
    But also he has big black...
  • Poem

    Star of the Nativity

    By Joseph Brodsky
    In the cold season, in a locality accustomed to heat more than
    to cold, to horizontality more than to a mountain,
    a child was born in a cave in order to save the world;
    it blew as only in deserts in winter it...
  • Poem

    December 24, 1971

    By Joseph Brodsky
    When it’s Christmas we’re all of us magi.
    At the grocers’ all slipping and pushing.
    Where a tin of halvah, coffee-flavored,
    is the cause of a human assault-wave
    by a crowd heavy-laden with parcels:
    each one his own king, his own camel.

    Nylon bags, carrier bags,...
  • Poem

    Christmas Trees

    By Robert Frost
    The city had withdrawn into itself
    And left at last the country to the country;
    When between whirls of snow not come to lie
    And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
    A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
    Yet did in...
  • Poem

    poetry-magazine

    “Your Luck Is About To Change”

    By Susan Elizabeth Howe
    Ominous inscrutable Chinese news
    to get just before Christmas,
    considering my reasonable health,
    marriage spicy as moo-goo-gai-pan,
    career running like a not-too-old Chevrolet.
    Not bad, considering what can go wrong:
    the bony finger of Uncle Sam
    might point out my...
  • Poem

    On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

    By John Milton
    This is the month, and this the happy morn,
          Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,
    Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
          Our great redemption from above did bring;
          For so the holy sages once did sing,
                That he...
  • Poem

    The Twelve Days of Christmas

    By Anonymous
    The first day of Christmas,
    My true love sent to me
    A partridge in a pear tree.

    The second day of Christmas,
    My true love sent to me
    Two turtle doves, and
    A partridge in a pear tree.
    ...
  • Poem

    Mistletoe

    By Walter de La Mare
    Sitting under the mistletoe
    (Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
    One last candle burning low,
    All the sleepy dancers gone,
    Just one candle burning on,
    Shadows lurking everywhere:
    Some one came, and kissed me there.

    Tired I was; my head would go
    Nodding under the mistletoe
    (Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
    No footsteps came, no...
  • Poem

    Good King Wenceslas

    By John Mason Neale
    Good King Wenceslas look’d out,
        On the Feast of Stephen;
    When the snow lay round about,
        Deep, and crisp, and even:
    Brightly shone the moon that night,
        Though the frost was cruel,
    When a poor man came...
  • Poem

    Christmas Carol

    By Sara Teasdale
    The kings they came from out the south,
       All dressed in ermine fine;
    They bore Him gold and chrysoprase,
       And gifts of precious wine.
     
    The shepherds came from out the north,
       Their coats were brown...
  • Poem

    The Three Kings

    By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    Three Kings came riding from far away,
    Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
    Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
    And they travelled by night and they slept by day,
    For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.
     
    ...
  • Poem

    In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 106

    By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
    Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
       The flying cloud, the frosty light:
       The year is dying in the night;
    Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

    Ring out the old, ring in the new,
       Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
       The year is...
  • Poem

    poetry-magazine

    Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree

    By George Starbuck
    *Ofury-bedecked!O glitter-torn!Let the wild wind erectbonbonbonanzas; junipers affectfrostyfreeze turbans; iciclestuff adornall cuckolded creation in a madcap crown of horn!It’s a new day; no scapegrace of a secttidying up the ashtrays playing Daughter-in-Law Elect;bells! bibelots! popsicle cigars! shatter the glassware! a...
  • Poem

    Advent Calendar

    By Gjertrud Schnackenberg
    Bethlehem in Germany,
    Glitter on the sloping roofs,
    Breadcrumbs on the windowsills,
    Candles in the Christmas trees,
    Hearths with pairs of empty shoes:
    Panels of Nativity
    Open paper scenes where doors
    Open into other scenes,
    Some recounted, some foretold.
    Blizzard-sprinkled flakes of gold
    Gleam from small interiors,
    Picture-boxes in the stars
    Open...
Newsletters

Sign up for Poetry Foundation newsletters

Sign Up