The best classic Christmas poems are Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (“’Twas the Night Before Christmas”), Christina Rossetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells,” T. S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi,” and William Blake’s “The Lamb.” Below are nine Christmas and winter poems, all in the public domain, each with a sample of the text, a note on why it suits the season, and a link to the full poem with its summary and analysis.
Only a few of these poems are cheerful. The best Christmas poetry holds joy and sorrow together: a stable in the cold, church bells in wartime, and old friends drinking to the years they have lost. That is why these poems still get read aloud every December.
Quick Picks
- Most famous
- A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore (1823)
- Best for church
- In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti (1872)
- Best for kids
- The Lamb by William Blake (1789)
- Best for a hard year
- Christmas Bells by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (written 1863)
- Shortest
- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (16 lines)
- Longest
- A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore (56 lines)
- For New Year’s Eve
- Auld Lang Syne by Robert Burns (written 1788)
The Christmas Story
These three poems go back to the first Christmas: a stable in the snow, three kings on a hard road, and a child who is also the Lamb of God. They suit church services, carol evenings, and anyone who wants the religious heart of the season.
1. In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti (1872)
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Rossetti moves the Nativity into an English winter of snow on snow, then asks what a poor person can give the Christ child. Her answer, “Give my heart,” is one of the most moving endings in any Christmas poem. Set to music by Gustav Holst in 1906 and Harold Darke in 1909, it is now one of the best-loved carols in English.
Read In the Bleak Midwinter, with summary and analysis ›
2. Journey of the Magi by T. S. Eliot (1927)
‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
One of the three wise men, now an old man, remembers the miserable trip to Bethlehem and still cannot tell whether he witnessed a birth or a death. Eliot wrote it for a series of Christmas pamphlets the year he joined the Church of England, and he borrowed the opening from a Christmas sermon preached in 1622. It is the least sentimental poem on this list and one of the most searching.
Read Journey of the Magi, with summary and analysis ›
3. The Lamb by William Blake (1789)
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
A child asks a lamb who made it, then answers his own question: the maker is Christ, who “became a little child.” The poem is not about Christmas as such, but those two lines hold the whole meaning of the Nativity in words a young reader can follow. John Tavener’s 1982 setting is often sung at Christmas carol services.
Read The Lamb, with summary and analysis ›
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
Here is Christmas as people actually live it: a family asleep on Christmas Eve, church bells on a morning in wartime, and a man alone with his horse on the darkest evening of the year.
4. A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore (1823)
’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
A father wakes to a clatter on the lawn and watches a small, jolly St. Nicholas land on the roof with eight reindeer, fill the stockings, and vanish up the chimney. Published anonymously in 1823, the poem did more than anything else to create the modern American Santa Claus. Its galloping rhythm makes it the classic Christmas Eve read-aloud.
Read A Visit from St. Nicholas, with summary and analysis ›
5. Christmas Bells by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (written 1863)
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Longfellow wrote it on Christmas Day during the Civil War, a month after his son Charles was badly wounded and two and a half years after his wife died in a fire. The poem admits despair, “There is no peace on earth,” before the bells answer it. Later set to music as “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” it is the Christmas poem for anyone who is struggling.
Read Christmas Bells, with summary and analysis ›
6. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (1923)
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
A traveler stops his sleigh to watch snow fill a stranger’s woods, then remembers his “promises to keep” and drives on. “The darkest evening of the year” points to the winter solstice, just days before Christmas. It never mentions the holiday, but few poems capture a December night so exactly.
Read Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, with summary and analysis ›
Poems for New Year’s Eve
The Christmas season ends at midnight on December 31. These three poems see out the old year: one bleak, one hopeful, and one sung by millions of people every year.
7. The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy (1900)
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
Hardy leans on a gate on a gray winter evening at the end of the nineteenth century, feeling that the whole landscape is the century’s corpse. Then an old thrush bursts into song, as if it knows some hope that he does not. It was published in the last days of 1900 and is the great poem of an ending year.
Read The Darkling Thrush, with summary and analysis ›
8. Ring Out, Wild Bells by Alfred Tennyson (1850)
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Tennyson asks the New Year’s bells to ring out grief, greed, and old quarrels and ring in kindness, peace, and truth. The section comes from In Memoriam A.H.H., his long elegy for his friend Arthur Hallam, so its hope has been earned through years of mourning. It is still read at New Year’s services and celebrations.
Read Ring Out, Wild Bells, with summary and analysis ›
9. Auld Lang Syne by Robert Burns (written 1788)
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
Burns reworked an old Scottish song into a toast to friends who have not seen each other in years, remembering the hills and streams of their childhood. The title means “old long since,” or “days gone by.” Scots sang it at Hogmanay, and it is now the song the English-speaking world sings as the clock strikes twelve.
Read Auld Lang Syne, with summary and analysis ›
Frequently Asked Questions
These are the questions readers ask most often about Christmas poems.
What Is the Most Famous Christmas Poem?
“A Visit from St. Nicholas,” better known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” is the most famous Christmas poem in English. It was first published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel in New York on December 23, 1823, and its picture of Santa Claus with a sleigh, eight reindeer, and a bag of toys shaped the modern American Christmas.
Who Wrote “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”?
Clement Clarke Moore, a New York scholar who taught Hebrew and Greek, claimed the poem and included it in his collected Poems in 1844. Descendants of Henry Livingston Jr., a New York farmer and poet who died in 1828, have argued since the nineteenth century that he wrote it, and the question has never been settled for certain.
What Are Some Short Christmas Poems?
Good short Christmas poems include Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (16 lines), William Blake’s “The Lamb” (20 lines), and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells” (35 lines). Each can be read aloud in two minutes or less.
What Christmas Poems Are Good for Church?
Christina Rossetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter” is the classic choice, since most congregations know it as a carol. T. S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi” suits Epiphany or a reflective service, and Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells” works well for a message about peace on earth.
What Christmas Poems Are Good for Kids?
“A Visit from St. Nicholas” is the best Christmas poem for children, with its strong rhythm, rhymes, and reindeer. William Blake’s “The Lamb” is short and gentle, and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is easy for older children to learn by heart.