Читать книгу Best Loved Christmas Carols, Readings and Poetry - Martin Manser - Страница 12

This poem by Phyllis McGinley, an American poet and writer for the New Yorker, takes some of the features of the perennially-popular ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ and weaves them into a meditation on family and love against the backdrop of the modern festive season.

What shall my true love

Have from me

To pleasure his Christmas

Wealthily?

The partridge has flown

From our pear tree.

Flown with our summers,

Are the swans, the geese.

Milkmaids and drummers

Would leave him little peace.

I’ve no gold ring

And no turtle dove.

So what can I bring

To my true love?

A coat for the drizzle,

Chosen at the store;

A saw and a chisel

For mending the door;

A pair of red slippers

To slip on his feet;

Three striped neckties;

Something sweet.

He shall have all

I can best afford –

No pipers, piping,

No leaping lord,

But a fine fat hen

For his Christmas board;

Two pretty daughters

(Versed in the role)

To be worn like pinks

In his buttonhole;

And the tree of my heart

With its calling linnet,

My evergreen heart

And the bright bird in it.

Phyllis McGinley (1905–78)

All the Days of Christmas © 1958 by Phyllis McGinley. First appeared in MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR, published by Viking Press. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.