In the Bleak Midwinter: Rosetti & Holst

In the Bleak Midwinter – words by Christina Rossetti and music by Gustav Holst (it has to be Holst for me) – is my favorite Christmas carol. I have a memory of singing it as a child beside my father in the gallery of the church we used to walk to. It always makes me cry because it’s so very beautiful – the giving of our hearts – and because of that long-ago memory.

Rossetti called it, simply, A Christmas Carol.

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, 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 midwinter, a stable-place sufficed
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 give a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part.
Yet what I can, I give Him, Give my heart.

By Christina Rossetti
Public Domain. Source: The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine vol. 3 (Scribner & Co., 1872)

Here are Tenebrae singing it beautifully, conducted by Nigel Short