What is the significance of the year 1913 in “Noël: Christmas Eve, 1913”?
At first I vaguely thought that the year must be a historical reference, possibly to World War I. But of course WWI didn’t start until 1914, so that idea was a non-starter, although Europe, particularly the Balkans, was in the middle of a spate of smaller conflicts in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the Great War. There is no information about the original poem in any of the biographical information I’ve come across on its author, Robert Bridges. He’s a fascinating character, though, who was England’s poet laureate from 1913-1930 but whose early career was as a doctor. He became a recognized poet only late in life but had always been interested in writing; he originally planned to retire from medicine at age 40 to devote himself to that pursuit. Life intervened, as it usually does, and he was actually forced to retire at age 38 because of lung disease. He lived until 85, though, so he had a good long time to write and produced volumes of poetry, verse dramas, hymns, and literary criticism. His deep Christian faith is reflected in many of his poems.
Which leads us to this particular poem. Its basic subject matter isn’t groundbreaking in any way: The poet goes for a solitary walk on Christmas Eve, and he includes the year because (presumably) he particularly remembers his thoughts and impressions at that time. (See above that 1913 was his first year as poet laureate.) He climbs a hill and looks down into the valley where there are many villages, each with its own church, and he can hear the distant music of the bells. He’s then reminded of the first Christmas, and the shepherds who also heard “music in the fields.” Here’s where his poem departs from the conventional and expected, because he says that the shepherds could not tell whether the singing that they heard was the angels or the “bright stars shining.” You can see where he got this imagery if you look at Luke 2:9: “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.” Can’t you imagine those men falling on their faces, blinded by that glory and not daring to look into the face of the angel? The sky had suddenly exploded into light, and they had no point of reference to explain it. (But they do hear and understand what the angels say, and as soon as those beings depart they very sensibly decide to check out the story and “see this thing which the angels have made known unto us.”) To him also, Bridges says, the bell peals are “starry music.” His wording here challenges the reader to think about how we know what we know about that first Christmas:
The singing of the angels,
The comfort of our Lord.
Words of old that come a-traveling
By the riches of the times.
What are “the riches of the times”? I think he means the long tradition of belief that has persevered since that first announcement, anchored by the written Scriptures that preserved the events of that night. Without those riches, our poet couldn’t draw the parallels that he does between the music he hears and the music the shepherds heard.
The poem has been cut substantially and the wording changed in several places in the move from poetry to song, I will simply point out the following wonderful lines in the original that Bridges wrote to describe and honor the actual bellringers whose music he’s hearing as he tramps alone through the frosty Christmas Eve:
Who are ringing for Christ in the belfries to-night
With arms lifted to clutch the rattling ropes that race
Into the dark above and the mad romping din.
(As I’m sure you’ll be fascinated to know, the art of bellringing is called “campanology,” and that apparently dissonant and unstructured sound you hear when bells are being rung together actually follows a strict pattern. One of the greatest detective novels of all time, Dorothy Sayers’ The Nine Tailors, actually has a death caused by that same “mad romping din.” Only when Lord Peter Wimsey foolishly enters the belltower while a peal is being rung and is almost killed himself is the mystery solved. Do read it!)
So that’s the author of our text. What about the composer of the music? Well, he’s pretty fascinating too. Lee Holdridge is still living today (as of 2020, having been born in 1944) and has composed music for a number of films (including a Grammy-winning score, written with Neil Diamond, for Jonathan Livingston Seagull), TV shows (including Beauty and the Beast), plus concert works and arrangements. In 2013 he premiered his full-length opera Dulce Rosa with the Los Angeles Opera Company, directed by Placido Domingo, no less.
This post was originally written to go with a program that included “Alfie the Christmas Tree,” written by John Denver and performed with the Muppets. This rather serious song shows up on the same album with Alfie, and Denver does a beautiful job of singing it. His voice just floats, and I can’t tell if he ever takes a breath or not. You can listen to it below. Go on, you know you want to!
Here is the original poem:
A frosty Christmas Eve when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village in the water’d valley
Distant music reach’d me peals of bells aringing:
The constellated sounds ran sprinkling on earth’s floor
As the dark vault above with stars was spangled o’er.
Then sped my thoughts to keep that first Christmas of all
When the shepherds watching by their folds ere the dawn
Heard music in the fields and marveling could not tell
Whether it were angels or the bright stars singing.
Now blessed be the tow’rs that crown England so fair
That stand up strong in prayer unto God for our souls
Blessed be their founders (said I) an’ our country folk
Who are ringing for Christ in the belfries to-night
With arms lifted to clutch the rattling ropes that race
Into the dark above and the mad romping din.
But to me heard afar it was starry music
Angels’ song, comforting as the comfort of Christ
When he spake tenderly to his sorrowful flock:
The old words came to me by the riches of time
Mellow’d and transfigured as I stood on the hill
Heark’ning in the aspect of th’ eternal silence.
And here are the lyrics that Holdridge used:
A frosty Christmas Eve, when the stars were shining
I traveled forth alone, where westward falls the hill
And from many, many a village, in the darkness of the valley
Distant music reached me, peals of bells were ringing
Then sped my thoughts to olden times, to that first of Christmases
When shepherds who were watching, heard music in the fields
And they sat there and they marveled, and they knew they could not tell
Whether it were angels, or the bright stars a singing
But to me heard afar, it was starry music
The singing of the angels, the comfort of our Lord
Words of old that come a traveling, by the riches of the times
And I softly listened, as I stood upon the hill
And I softly listened, as I stood upon the hill
© Debi Simons
