Mild is the Parting Year - Walter Savage Landor

Mild is the parting year, and sweet
    The odour of the falling spray;

The Massacre of the Innocents - Vittoria Colonna

Pure innocents, your lord, revealed so late,
  Departs, and leaves you unprotected quite;
  He wills that on your heads the storm should light,
  Averted from His own. Thrice happy fate!

The Magi - Richard Chenevix Trench

Little pomp or earthly state
On His lonely steps might wait;
Few the homages and small,
That the guilty earth at all
Was permitted to accord
To her King and hidden Lord:

A Hymn on the Nativity of My Saviour - Ben Jonson

I Sing the birth was born to-night,
The Author both of life and light;
    The angels so did sound it.
And like the ravished shepherds said,
Who saw the light and were afraid,
    Yet searched, and true they found it.

The Giver of Stars - Amy Lowell

Hold your soul open for my welcoming.
Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me
With its clear and rippled coolness,

The Angels, for the Nativitie of Our Lord - William Drummond of Hawthornden

Run, shepherds, run where Bethlem blest appears;
We bring the best of news, be not dismay’d,

Mosquitoes (Sonnet XV) - George Jehoshaphat Mountain

Among the plagues on earth which God has sent
  Of lighter torment, is the plague of flies:

I will forget - Alice Furlong

            I will forget
The moaning of the sea about Aran;
            Green beaches wet,
            And grey rocks barren —
The sea-moan, against rocks that hinder and let!
(I said, and in my saying, remembered yet.)

Mary Magdalen - Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola

Blessed, yet sinful one, and broken-hearted!
    The crowd are pointing at the thing forlorn,
    In wonder and in scorn!
Thou weepest days of innocence departed;
    Thou weepest, and thy tears have power to move
    The Lord to pity and love.

The Smoker - Marc-Antoine Girard

Upon a faggot set, with pipe in hand and pot,
Loins 'gainst a chimney-back disconsolately leant,

The Fly, A Fable - Christian Fürchtegott Gellert

That insects think, as well as speak,
Needs, at this day, small eloquence to show;
Esop, whom even children prize in Greek,
Affirm'd as much, some thousand years ago.

I Seek for Rhythmic Whisperings - Zinaida Hippius

I seek for rhythmic whisperings
Where noises bandy—
For life I listen wistfully
In footless banter.

On ascending a hill leading to a convent - Francisco Manuel de Melo

Pause not with lingering foot, O pilgrim, here,
Pierce the deep shadows of the mountain-side;
Firm be thy step, thy heart unknown to fear,
To brighter worlds this thorny path will guide.

Life is a Dream - Pedro Calderón de la Barca

We live, while we see the sun,
Where life and dreams are as one;
And living has taught me this,
Man dreams the life that is his,
Until his living is done.

The Evening Star - Claudio Tolomei

Blest star of love, bright Hesperus, whose glow
  Serves for sweet escort through the still of night,
  Of Love the living flame, the friendly light,
  And torch of Venus when she walks below!

Syrian Mother's Lullaby - Ajan Syrian

Low hangs the morning star,
Arahan arahan!
Dull, like a fading scar,
Arahan,
Lies the Dead Sea.

Sea Wrack - Moira O’Neill

The wrack was dark an’ shiny where it floated in the sea,
There was no one in the brown boat but only him an’ me;

The Father - Joshua Sylvester

Alpha and Omega, God alone:
  Eloi, My God, the Holy-One;
Whose Power is Omnipotence:
Whose Wisedome is Omni-science:

O Lord, God, of nations - Thomas Bracken

O Lord, God,
of nations and of us too
Listen to us,
Cherish us
Let goodness flourish,
May your blessings flow.
Defend
Aotearoa

Kahukeke - Kiri Piahana-Wong

Here at Hikurangi,
the waters pour
down Waitekahu
and into the sea.

A Stolen Glove - Petrarch

Oh lovely hand, thou that my heart dost wring,
  And shut my life up in that narrow space,

Self-Examination - Charles Heavysege

Open, my heart, thy ruddy valves;
  It is thy master calls;

The Mother - Nettie Palmer

In the sorrow and the terror of the nations,
In a world shaken through by lamentations,
  Shall I dare know happiness
  That I stitch a baby’s dress?

Gabriel's Message Does Away - Jacobus Finno

Gabriel's message does away
Satan's curse and Satan's sway,
out of darkness brings our Day:
So, behold,
All the gates of heaven unfold.