Uploaded on December 10, 2011
Villagers all, this frosty tide,
Let your doors swing open wide,
Though wind may follow and snow betide,
Yet draw us in by your fire to bide:
Joy shall be yours in the morning.
Here we stand in the cold and the sleet,
Blowing fingers and stamping feet,
Come from far away, you to greet—
You by the fire and we in the street—
Bidding you joy in the morning.
For ere one half of the night was gone,
Sudden a star has led us on,
Raining bliss and benison—
Bliss tomorrow and more anon,
Joy for every morning.
Good man Joseph toiled through the snow—
Saw the star o’er the stable low;
Mary she might not farther go—
Welcome thatch and litter below!
Joy was hers in the morning.
And then they heard the angels tell,
“Who were the first to cry noel?
Animals all as it befell,
In the stable where they did dwell!
Joy shall be theirs in the morning.”
—Kenneth Grahame
Favorite Poems Old and New
edited by Helen Ferris
12.10.2023: That house was for sale when we were looking. I sometimes wonder how our lives would be different now if we had bought that then.