A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

IT is Christmas! and I’m thinking
We might make the poor to feel
Happy, in this time of friendship
That will o’er the wealthy steal.
What of Christ, our risen brother,
Who the multitude did feed
With the loaves and two small fishes,
When of food they were in need?
Dare we say the loaves and fishes
Now are taken in His name?
And the simple Christian gospel
Is not still the very same
That the weary and forsaken
Turn’d to with a loving part,
While the Everlasting Father
Heal’d the broken, bleeding heart?
Oh! I read how one Zaccheus,
Short of stature, climb’d a tree,
To see the Teacher as He pass’d,
And evoked His sympathy.
Salvation to his house had come
When Zaccheus, for the poor,
Gave half his goods; and a four-fold
Those he’d wrong’d in craft before.
Where the spirit, wounded, broken,
Silent suffers in this woe,
By your Christian Christmas bounty
Let your alms in secret flow
From the halls where plenty reigns,
From the mites that might be saved,
A merry Christmas, and God bless you,
For the Blackburn well-behaved.

Title:A Christmas Carol

Author:unknown

Publication:The Blackburn Times

Published in:Blackburn

Date:December 20th, 1862

Keywords:charity, poverty, religion

Commentary

This poem follows themes familiar in the Cotton Famine Poetry which was published around Christmas time, with a focus on religion and charity. As in many of the other poems we’ve featured, the joys and comforts of Christmas for the wealthy and its potential trials for the poor are contrasted, and the poet goes on to draw on Biblical teaching to encourage some redistribution of resources. Interestingly, the tone towards the rich is one of disapproval, and the wording suggests that they are due some of the blame for the condition of the poor. References are made to the loaves and fishes being ‘taken’ from the people, and to Zaccheus the tax collector, regarded as a sinner until his faith in Christ led him to seek redemption by returning dishonest earnings and giving to the poor. Finally, there is a warning against ostentatious giving, so we know that the envisioned ‘well-behaved’ of Blackburn are those who help the poor through pure motives rather than to gain social approval.

Though this poem is described as a carol, unfortunately there is no further information provided about any musical accompaniment or a suggested tune.

- Dr Ruth Mather, University of Exeter.