Christmas Day – The Family Sitting by John Meade Falkner

IN the days of Caesar Augustus

               There went forth this decree:

Si quis rectos et justus[i]

               Liveth in Galilee,

Let him go up to Jerusalem

               And pay his scot to me.

There are passed one after the other

               Christmases fifty-three,

Since I sat here with my mother

               And heard the great decree:

How they went up to Jerusalem

               Out of Galilee.

They have passed one after the other;

               Father and mother died,

Brother and sister and brother

               Taken and sanctified.

I am left alone in the sitting,

               With none to sit beside.

On the fly-leaves of these old prayer-books

               The childish writings fade,

Which show that once they were their books

               In the days when prayer was made

For other kings and princesses,

               William and Adelaide.

The pillars are twisted with holly,

               And the font is wreathed with yew

Christ forgive me for folly,

               Youth’s lapses–not a few,

For the hardness of my middle life,

               For age’s fretful view.

Cotton-wool letters on scarlet,

               All the ancient lore,

Tell how the chieftains starlit

               To Bethlehem came to adore;

To hail Him King in the manger,

               Wonderful, Counsellor.

The bells ring out in the steeple

               The gladness of erstwhile,

And the children of other people

               Are walking up the aisle;

They brush my elbow in passing,

               Some turn to give me a smile.

Is the almond-blossom bitter?

               Is the grasshopper heavy to bear ?

Christ make me happier, fitter

               To go to my own over there:

Jerusalem the Golden,

               What bliss beyond compare!

My Lord, where I have offended

               Do Thou forgive it me.

That so, when all being ended,

               I hear Thy last decree,

I may go up to Jerusalem

               Out of Galilee.[ii]

[i] ‘If any are upright and just’.

[ii] Falkner, J M, Poems, 1932; anthologized in Larkin, P (ed.), Oxford book of twentieth century verse, 1973, 42-3

~ Excerpt from A Wessex Nativity compiled by John Chandler https://www.hobnobpress.co.uk/books/p/a-wessex-nativity-celebrating-midwinter-in-somerset-dorset-and-wiltshire-compiled-by-john-chandler-1