THE CHRISTMAS ROSE What is the flower that blooms each year In flowerless days, Making a little blaze On the bleak earth, giving my heart some cheer? Harsh the sky and hard the ground When the Christmas rose is found. Look! its white star, low on earth, Rays a vision of rebirth. Who is the child that's born each year -- His bedding, straw: His grace, enough to thaw My wintering life, and melt a world's despair? Harsh the sky and hard the earth When the Christmas child comes forth. Look! around a stable throne Beasts and wise men are at one. What men are we that, year on year, We Herod-wise In our cold wits devise A death of innocents, a rule of fear? Hushed your earth, full-starred your sky For a new nativity: Be born in us, relieve our plight, Christmas child, you rose of light! -- Late Poet Laureate England - C. DAY-LEWIS only child of Rev. F. C. DAY LEWIS was born in Ballintubbert House, Queen's Co, Ireland (now Co. Laois) in 1904. When Cecil was four, his mother died and the family moved to England. The Helleborus niger (Christmas Rose) can bloom in the darkest months of the year. From "C. Day-Lewis, The Complete Poems," Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA (1992).