Christmas Poetry & Prose – Read by Great Voices

Readers include: Alec Guinness, Robert Donat, Richard Burton, Dulcie Gray, Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, Annette Daniels Taylor, Basil Rathbone, Claire Bloom,and Special Guest: Jonathan Jones

Preparations
1. Clement Moore: ‘Twas the Night before Christmas (A Visit from
St.Nicholas) / Basil Rathbone 3:15
2. Robert Frost: Stopping by Woods / Robert Frost 0:50
3. Robert Frost: Dust of Snow / (author) 0:17
4. Eugene Field: When Santa Claus Comes / Jonathan Jones 0:45
5. John Betjeman: Christmas / Alec Guinness 2:13
6. E.E. Cummings: Little Tree / Jonathan Jones 1:23

Seasonal Regrets
7. Emily Dickinson: ‘Twas just this time last year I died /
Annette Daniels Taylor 1:17
8. Alfred Lord Tennyson: Ring out Wild Bells !
(Canto CVI from In Memoriam A.H.H) / Jonathan Jones 2:05
9. Jill Furse: Carol / Robert Donat 0:42
10. Henry W. Longfellow: Christmas Bells / Jonathan Jones 1:59
Celebrations & Mythology
11. Edgar Guest: At Christmas / Jonathan Jones 2:23
12. Theodore Watts-Dunton: Wassail Chorus at the Mermaid
Tavern / Robert Donat 3:12
13. William Wordsworth: Minstrels / Jonathan Jones 1:02
14. Walter de la Mare: Mistletoe / Jonathan Jones 0:52
15. C.Day Lewis: The Christmas Tree / (author) 1:29
16. John Mason Neale: Good King Wenceslas / Jonathan Jones 1:54

Christmas Scenes
17. Shakespeare: When Icycles Hang / Claire Bloom 0:52
18. William Wordsworth: A Boisterous Winter Evening / Alec Clunes 2:20
19. Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Frost at Midnight /
Richard Burton & Dulcie Gray 4:39
20. Laurie Lee: Christmas Landscape / Jonathan Jones 1:40
21. Thomas Hardy: Snow in the Suburbs / Carleton Hobbs 1:06
22. James Stephens: Donnybrook / Lewis Jones 0:57
23. Odette Tchernine: The Snow / Dulcie Gray 1:08

Biblical
24. Hilaire Belloc: Noel / Robert Donat 1:27
25. Sara Teasdale: Christmas Carol / Jonathan Jones 1:16
26. T.S. Eliot: Journey of the Magi / Alec Guinness 2:33
27. Thomas Hardy: The Oxen / Robert Donat 0:42
28. Christina Rosetti: In the Bleak Midwinter / Jonathan Jones 1:51
29. John Alexander Chapman: Christus Natus Est / Robert Donat 1:14
30. Anon. Cherry Tree Carol / Alec Guinness 2:11
31. Anon. I Syng of a Mayden (‘Early Carol’) / Robert Donat 0:48
32. St.Francis of Assisi: Prayer / Robert Donat 1:52

Prose & New Year
33. Dylan Thomas: A Child’s Christmas in Wales / (read by author) 19:48
34. Robert Burns: Auld Lang Syne / Frederick Worlock 1:10