Poem of the Day: The Oxen

by Thomas Hardy

A slightly more unusual Christmas-related poem today, penned by that master of misery, Thomas Hardy.

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel,

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

Originally published in The Times on 24th December 1915 (I have an even more appropriate piece lined up for tomorrow). For an essay on this poem so literary-looking that I haven't read it -- entitled Image, Allusion, Voice, Dialect, and Irony in Thomas Hardy's The Oxen and the Poem's Original Publication Context -- click here.