Poem of the Week: The Oxen - Thomas Hardy

Hello again!

Another week has passed, and as we approach Christmas I've decided to blog a Christmas poem by the wonderful architect, novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. You know, the Tess of the D'Urbervilles guy.

Here is a glimpse of nostalgia at a faith Hardy once knew, growing up in the church before he gave his religion up. And the poem shows such a fondness, a yearning even, for his lost Christian faith.

This poem is about as lyrical as my tastes can usually handle, but there's something really lovely about the rhyme and meter at work here as memories of childhood Christmases are invoked by the form as well as the content of Hardy's poem.

Enjoy!


The Oxen
by 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.