“A Christmas Carol” | Guide to Daily Reading 12/5/22

Christina Georgina Rossetti born on this date in 1830.

Known now as “In the Bleak Midwinter,” Christina Rossetti, 1872

Daily Readings:

Rossetti’s One Certainty
Up-Hill
Paul Hamilton Hayne’s In Harbor
Between the Sunken Sun and the New Moon
Goldsmith’s When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly

Up-Hill
BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
   Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
   From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
   A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
   You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
   Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
   They will not keep you standing at that door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
   Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
   Yea, beds for all who come.