all ready

Wrapping done. Cleaning done. Packing mostly done. Home tomorrow.

Internet access will be a bit sporadic, so -- merry Christmas, everyone!

I just ran across the carol quoted below while doing a general google on Christmas poetry. This carol was partly quoted in Antonia Forest's End of Term, and I always wondered how the rest of it went.

---

A Day, a Day of Glory

A day, a day of glory!
A day that ends our woe!
A day that tells of triumph
Against our vanquish'd foe!
Yield, summer's brightest sunrise,
To this December morn:
Life up your gates, ye Princes
And let the Child be born!

With Gloria in excelsis
Archangels tell their mirth:
With Kyrie eleyson
Men answer upon the earth:
And angels swell the triumph,
And mortals raise the horn,
Life up you gates, ye Princes,
And let the Child be born.

He comes, His throne the manger;
He comes, His shrine the stall;
The ox and ass His courtiers,
Who made and governs all:
The "House of Bread" His birth place,
The Prince of wine and corn:
Lift up your gates, ye Princes,
And let the Child be born.

Then bar the gates, that henceforth
None thus may passage win,
Because the Prince of Israel
Alone hath entered in:
The earth, the sky, the ocean
His glorious way adorn:
Lift up your gates, ye Princes,
And let the Child be born.

-- John Mason Neale