Star over Bethlehem by Agatha Christie

too
    Or did it stir? Stir and awake from its long dreaming?
    It was so quiet that I scarcely knew …
    I only know next morn the sands were golden
    And that day broke for us alone.
    It came and brought us joy—and now is gone.
    But there remain in that enchanted land
    Our footprints in the golden endless sand …

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Dartmoor
    I SHALL not return again the way I came,
    Back to the quiet country where the hills
    Are purple in the evenings, and the tors
    Are grey and quiet, and the tall standing stones
    Lead out across the moorland till they end
    At water’s edge.
    It is too gentle, all that land,
    It will bring back
    Such quiet dear remembered things,
    There, where the longstone lifts its lonely head,
    Gaunt, grey, forbidding,
    Ageless, however worn away;
    There, even, grows the heather …
    Tender, kind,
    The little streams are busy in the valleys,
    The rivers meet by the grey Druid bridge,
    So quiet,
    So quiet,
    Not as death is quiet, but as life can be quiet
    When it is sweet.

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To a Cedar Tree
    D O you remember Lebanon?
    The stillness and the snows?
    The cool cold glare
    And a blue sky—pitiless—
    Or sometimes grey and heavy with unfallen snow?
    In the summers that were of polished brown hills
    (But always the stillness—the mountain tops)
    Here Solomon’s men came to hew and fell the cedars
    And the trees were taken to stand
    Proudly in the temple of God …
    But they had been nearer to God,
    Had lived with God in the hills,
    Had whispered to God in the stillness;
    They had been proud then and unafraid.
    And you, my Cedar tree, in my garden by the Thames,
    Brought in a ship and planted in a strange land
    Near to the river
    With farm lands all around,
    Close to the toil and the labour of men,
    Stately you grew, your branches wide,
    Gracious you stand
    With smooth clipped lawn all around you
    And an English herbaceous border
    Flaunting its bloom on a summer’s day.
    You are a part of England now:
    â€œTea will be served on the lawn
    Under the Cedar tree.”
    But do you remember Lebanon?
    Beloved tree—do you remember Lebanon?

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Calvary
    O N Calvary, in midday’s burning heat,
    What thoughts in Mary’s heart, as pale she stands?
    What echoed words, remembered words, that beat
    From out the past, and make her clench her hands?
    Gold, frankincense and myrrh … The Sages kneel,
    And simple shepherds all agog with joy,
    With Angels praising God who doth reveal
    His love for men in Christ, the newborn boy …
    Where now the incense? Where the kingly gold?
    For Jesus only bitter myrrh and woe.
    Here hangs no kingly figure—just a son
    In pain and dying …
    How shall Mary know
    That with his sigh: “’ Tis finished … ” all is told?
    Then —at that moment—Christ’s Reign has begun!

Love Poems and Others

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Count Fersen to the Queen
    I N the North the snows are falling,
    In the North the birds are calling,
    But my heart that lives for loving
    Shall not hear its mate reply.
    In the North white streams are flowing,
    In the North the flowers are blowing,
    But my heart that is a lover’s
    Shall not know a second Spring …
    Hers the ring upon my finger,
    Now I pray may death not linger,
    Say of me “He was a Lover,”
    Lived and died to serve a Queen.

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Beatrice Passes
    W HERE she passes, there is Light
    After Night …
    A smile that follows on a sigh
    As she goes by …
    With her footsteps comes a sound
    All round,
    As of wild and woodland things
    Gently stirring fragile things
    When Beatrice passes by …
    With her presence comes a calm
    Full of balm …
    Where she steps the flowers abound
    On holy ground …
    At her touch the trembling trees,
    Even these,
    Put forth tender buds that break,
    Blossoming for her sweet sake
    Who is Light and Love …
    At her coming there is Life
    After strife!
    Larks are singing in the sky
    When she draws nigh!
    At her voice the quivering Earth
    Knows