*this year. As someone with seasonal depression, “In the bleak mid-winter” based on the poem by Christina Rossetti from 1872, always gets me “in the feels.” I recently learned this Victorian era poet suffered from “melancholy” (depression) herself. The first and last stanza say so much with an economy of words: “earth as hard as iron, water like a stone” … “what shall I give him, poor as I am?”

I’ve often been tempted to make a list of songs that make me cry every time I hear it, no matter what. There are a dozen or so. This is one, always gets me choked up.

It’s been bleak this year at times. I’m glad God can come into the bleakness to love and save anyway.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,

Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,

The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;

But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,

Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.