10

The Sidney Carol

Clive Wilmer

Poet and member of the congregation Clive Wilmer introduces and reads his poem The Sidney Carol

The Sidney Carol, Clive Wilmer

Each year it comes round again:
The aching chill,
The ashen sky,
The sunset bleeding through the fen,
The freezing of our warm good will,
The sense that things must die.
Each year it comes round again.

As every year, the shepherds squat
On bleaching grass
Around the fold.
Not asking if their life is what
Was always meant to come to pass
Or why good things grow cold,
As every year, the shepherds squat.

Sure as the stars at evening rise,
There are three kings
Who year by year
Come seeking what will make them wise:
The new life which the winter brings,
And which will now appear
Sure as the stars at evening rise.

In this bleak world what hope of joy?
The ordeal of birth
Has flecked with blood
A slight girl and her tiny boy.
They hear the song of peace on earth
And trust in human good:
In this bleak world a hope of joy.

The year runs on and there is change:
Not peace but war,
My path is lost.
And yet the power of time is strange.
The winter child comes as before,
Like snowdrops in the frost.
The year runs on and there is change.

Once more, a choir of angels sings,
As moonlight glows
Within the ice.
The shepherds join them, and the kings.
Let us, too, join them, while it snows,
To greet the new-born Christ.
Once more, a choir of angels sings.