Happy New Year! All back in action but snowed under with talks, studies and emails to write. Regular blogging will resume next week as i’ve been reading and thinking even more random things than usual over the last few weeks.
But, in the meantime, since it is still the Christmas season (after all, for the unaware or ignorant, Twelfth Night is not till Saturday and the 12th day of Christmas is actually this coming Sunday), here is a poignant poem from the Christmas edition of The Spectator by the sensitive and humane poet Wendy Cope.
A CHRISTMAS SONG
Why is the baby crying
On this, his special day,
When we have brought him lovely gifts
And laid them on the hay?He’s crying for the people
Who greet this day with dread
Because somebody dear to them
Is far away or dead,For all the men and women
Whose love affairs went wrong,
Who try their best at merriment
When Christmas comes along,For separated parents
Whose turn it is to grieve
While children hang their stockings up
Elsewhere on Christmas Eve,For everyone whose burden
Carried through the year
Is heavier at Christmastime,
The season of good cheer.That’s why the baby’s crying
There in the cattle stall:
He’s crying for those people.
He’s crying for them all.
