Happy Yule Time

Issue 25

Yule is the original 12-day solstice festival that's been celebrated long before Christmas. It is one of the oldest celebrations of wintertime in the world.

It begins today on the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) and ends 1 January 2023.

One of my favourite winter poems is Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poem was written to celebrate the birth of his son, Hartley, in February 1798.

He wrote the poem in a contemplative mood while gazing upon his sleeping son. The atmosphere of the poem is perfectly peaceful and calm, and there is nothing to unsettle it.

Here are two extracts from the poem...

Frost at Midnight

The Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before. The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, Have left me to that solitude, which suits Abstruser musings: save that at my side My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not; Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

Whether the summer clothe the general earth

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the night-thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

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And my favourite winter solstice poem is Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost...

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Wishing you a magical yule,

Snowy pictures © mark fen
Plus vintage portrait of General Robert Lee on his horse Traveler.