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Advent is celebrated when the year is becoming darker and colder, moving into the death and dormancy of winter.
Before we can greet the coming of the light, we need to engage with some themes that are challenging and occasionally fearful. Like the Magi who travelled a long distance to search out and adore the infant Jesus, and who took some wrong turns on the way, we too have a journey to undertake before we find that we have
'Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.'
U. A. Fanthorpe, BC:AD
Haphazard by Starlight is a companion volume to Janet Morley's bestselling Lent book, The Heart's Time, which delighted readers with its thoughtfully chosen selection of poems and its biblically sensitive commentaries.
Here, the reader is given an opportunity to engage in a pilgrimage of the heart, through Advent and Christmas to the feast of the Epiphany. Each day - from 1 December to 6 January - offers a poem (sometimes explicitly Christian, often not) and an accessible commentary that is both critically informed and devotional in intent.
The poets represented include Rowan Williams, Elizabeth Jennings, Edwin Muir, Philip Larkin, Jane Kenyon, Gillian Clarke, George Herbert, T. S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Waldo Williams, P. J. Kavanagh, Ruth Fainlight, William Blake and many more.
1 December Advent Calendar Rowan Williams 1
'He will come like child'
2 December November Sonnet Elizabeth Jennings 5
'This is the season of right doubt'
3 December Autumn's Fall Kerry Hardie 8
'There must be space for death'
4 December Shadows D. H. Lawrence 12
'he is breaking me down to his own oblivion'
5 December Black Rook in Rainy Weather Sylvia Plath 16
'The long wait for the angel'
6 December The Other Ruth Fainlight 20
'Whatever I find if I search will be wrong'
7 December We grow accustomed to the Dark Emily Dickinson 24
'The Bravest - grope a little'
8 December The Absence R. S. Thomas 28
'a vacuum he may not abhor'
9 December Dover Beach Matthew Arnold 31
'we are here as on a darkling plain'
10 December Church Going Philip Larkin 36
'It pleases me to stand in silence here'
11 December Ozymandias P. B. Shelley 41
'Nothing beside remains'
12 December The Second Coming W. B. Yeats 45
'the centre cannot hold'
13 December The Tyger William Blake 48
'In the forests of the night'
14 December Darkness - after Rilke Alan Payne 52
'All selves/ belong to you'
15 December Blackbird in Fulham P. J. Kavanagh 55
'Its sole belief, that light will come at last'
16 December The Bat Jane Kenyon 59
'the one who astounded Mary'
17 December Annunciation Gwyneth Lewis 62
'he found his devotion drawn/ to nothing'
18 December The Annunciation Edwin Muir 65
'The angel and the girl are met'
19 December The Visitation Elizabeth Jennings 69
'secrets to be spoken'
20 December Northumbrian Sequence, 4 Kathleen Raine 73
'Let in your child tonight'
21 December At the Winter Solstice Jane Kenyon 77
'the girl dressed as Mary trembled'
22 December Ode to Winter Gillian Clarke 81
'On the darkest day bring in the tree'
23 December seasonal ghazal Harry Gilonis 84
'the yonder star our comfort'
24 December In the Days of Caesar Waldo Williams,
'the great music beyond tr. Rowan Williams 87 reason and reckoning'
25 December BC:AD U. A. Fanthorpe 90
'haphazard by starlight straight/ into the kingdom of heaven'
26 December A Christmas Carol Christina Rossetti 94
'Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him'
27 December Christmas George Herbert 98
'Wrapt in night's mantle'
28 December Innocent's Song Charles Causley 102
'What is he doing with the children?'
29 December Song for a Winter Birth Vernon Scannell 106
'The night was nailed to the sky'
30 December Musee des Beaux Arts W. H. Auden 110
'About suffering they were never wrong'
31 December 'Ring out, wild bells' Alfred, Lord Tennyson 114
'The year is going, let him go'
1 January The Year's Midnight Gillian Clarke 118
'expecting a future'
2 January Agnus Dei Denise Levertov 122
'Omnipotence / has been tossed away'
3 January Woman to Child Judith Wright 127
'Then all a world I made in me'
4 January Winter Paradise Kathleen Raine 131
'face unchanging everchanging'
5 January Journey of the Magi T. S. Eliot 134
'A cold coming we had of it'
6 January God's Grandeur Gerard Manley
'The world is charged with Hopkins 139
the grandeur of God'
Acknowledgements 143