It's interesting to compare the Eskimo poem with the sentimental Victorian Poems that follow. Taskes
The Mother's Song
IT is so still in the house.
There is a calm in the house;
The snowstorm wails out there,
And the dogs are rolled up with snouts under the tail.
My little boy is sleeping on the ledge,
On his back he lies, breathing through his open mouth.
His little stomach is bulging roud -
Is it strange if I start to cry with joy?
-Eskimo
Translated from Peter Fruechen
From
The Oxford Book of Christmas Poems, OUP: Oxford. 1984
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K
eeping Christmas
How will you your Christmas keep?
Feasting, fasting, or asleep?
Will you laugh or will you pray,
Or will you forget the day?
Be it kept with joy or pray'r
Keep of either some to spare;
Watsoever brings the day,
Do not keep but give away.
-Eleanor Farjeon
Hang Up The Baby's Stocking
Hang up the baby's stocking
Be sure you don't forget!
The dear little dimpled darling,
She never saw Christmas yet!
But I've told her all about it,
And she opened her big blue eyes;
And I'm sure she understood it-
She looked so funny and wise.
Dear, what a tiny stocking!
It doesn't take much to hold
Such little pink toe's as baby's
Away from the frost and the cold
But then, for the baby's Christmas,
It will never do at all.
Why! Santa wouldn't be looking
For anything half so small.
I know what I will do for the baby.
I've thought of the very best plan.
I'll borrow a stocking of Grandma's,
The longest that ever I can
And you'll hang it by mine, dear mother,
Right here in the corner so!
And leave a letter to Santa,
And fasten it in the toe.
Write-this is the baby's stocking,
That hangs in the corner here.
You never have seen her, Santa,
For she only came this year
But she's just the blessed'st baby.
And now before you go,
Just cram her stocking with goodies,
From the top clean down to the toe!
-Emily Huntington Miller
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