Welcome, Yule! Harper's Traditional Winter Solstice Post

[kniteracy]

Welcome, Yule-- Harper's Traditional Winter Solstice Post

The Shortest Day

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

Susan Cooper

Welcome, Yule.

Comments

[jeanniemac.livejournal.com]

Yay!!! Someone else on LJ who is familier with "The Shortest Day"!! ***Jeannie does the happy dance***

Its so nice to see it on LJ (other than on my own journal). I've been going to Revels performances for years and have a lot of their recordings. starmalachite even read "The Shortest Day" at my wedding reception (my hubby and I were married on the Winter Solstice).

[roaming.livejournal.com]

oh, I love that poem. They say it at every Christmas Revels. (http://www.revels.org/about_revels/history.htm)

(I'm not going this year, though I have for the past, oh, 10. One of our professors used to invited me, it was our yearly date. (She's a she, and no not gay: just her way to bribe me to be nicer to her than the other profs during the year.) Now that I've been gone from that office two years, I haven't heard a thing from her at all. Goes to show you: when they don't need you for something, you're as good as non-existent. To be fair, I haven't written her in all this time either, so maybe she's feeling I've "dumped" her. Who knows. Don't care.) Anyway, Sanders Theatre seats are TORTURE. And if I have to watch one more Morris Dance I'll pass out.

;-P

[morven.livejournal.com]

Happy Yule to you