Noel

Noel is a poem written by J.R.R. Tolkien that was published in 1936 on pages 4-5 of the ’Annual’ of Our Lady's School, Abingdon near Oxford, together with the poem The Shadow Man. After discovering the poem in 2013, Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull claimed that the it was a "directly Christian poem, celebrating the birth of Christ".Wayne G. Hammond, Christina Scull, "Tolkien Notes 8" on Wayneandchristina.wordpress.com, June 16, 2013
The poem was re-published in 2024 as entry 148 in The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, where Hammond and Scull likened the poem's mood to "an English winter", comparing it to Christina Rossetti's 'A Christmas Carol' from 1872.The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, Vol. III, no. 148: Noel
== First stanza ==
:Grim was the world and grey last night;
::The moon and stars were fled,
:The hall was dark without song or light.
::The fires were fallen dead.
:The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
::And over the mountains' teeth
:It whistled bitter-cold and free,
::As a sword leapt from its sheath.
== References ==
Category:Poems by J.R.R. Tolkien