The gate of the year

Who knows what is behind it? Only good things I hope...

One of the best known yet least known poems was published 100 years ago. It is the poem quoted by King George VI in his Christmas Day broadcast in 1939. It came at the end of the nine-minute broadcast:
I feel that we may all find a message of encouragement in the lines which, in my closing words, I would like to say to you:

I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year,
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."
And he replied, "Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way."

May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.

The King's broadcast was specifically Christian in content. He identified Christmas as "above all, the festival of peace".
But Britain was of course at war (and, it is worth noting the obvious fact, obscured by hindsight, that at the time no one knew if Britain would win the war). "I believe from my heart," George VI said, "that the cause which binds together my peoples and our gallant and faithful Allies is the cause of Christian civilisation."

The mysterious-sounding words with which he finished the broadcast were by Minnie Haskins (1875-1957). They came from a poem of hers called "God Knows", in a collection, The Desert, published in 1908. Neither the poem nor its author was well known.
Indeed, Miss Haskins did not realise the King was going to quote her words.
She didn't hear the broadcast. "I heard the quotation read in a summary of the speech," she told The Daily Telegraph the following day. "I thought the words sounded familiar and suddenly it dawned on me that they were out of my little book."
The poem had been drawn to the King's attention by Queen Elizabeth, the present Queen's mother, and the lines were to be recited 63 years later at her own funeral.


In other news:

Happy birthday to #2 daughter, born during the midnight chimes of Big Ben 24 years ago today. Love you Bryony. X.