I was once preaching when I tried to describe how bleak things were in Israel just before Christ came. As I was trying to conjure it up, the hymn by Christian Rossetti (1830-1894), sister of the Pre-Raphaelite Rossetti brothers, came to mind. It begins
In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone:
Snow had fallen, Snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, Long time ago.
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone:
Snow had fallen, Snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, Long time ago.
I like the hymn I must confess (I have a favourite version by Bert Jansch) but disliked the emphasis on the weather. Who knows whether it was snowing anyway? On reflection, I guess that Rossetti's point is not meteorological but metaphorical. She is using the ice and snow to picture the hardness and sin that characterised those times in Israel.
It is the same in C S Lewis's first Narnia story where the faun Mr Tumnus speaks to Lucy about the evil witch and famously says 'It's she that makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!'
(Rossetti's poem was written before 1872 and published posthumously in her Poetic Works (1904). It appeared in The English Hymnal 1906. She apparently wrote these words in response to a request from the magazine Scribner’s Monthly for a Christmas poem.
Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the second book in the series and the first to be published. It appeared in 1950. The quote is from Chapter 2).
(Rossetti's poem was written before 1872 and published posthumously in her Poetic Works (1904). It appeared in The English Hymnal 1906. She apparently wrote these words in response to a request from the magazine Scribner’s Monthly for a Christmas poem.
Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the second book in the series and the first to be published. It appeared in 1950. The quote is from Chapter 2).
