CHRISTMAS EVE, AND TWELVE OF THE CLOCK, "NOW THEY ARE ALL ON THEIR KNEES"

Two years ago on December 4, 2017 I posted "THIS IS THE MONTH FOR MUSIC, MAKING, POETRY AND PRAYER."   It's still true.  Ave Maria is playing on my classical holiday channel.  Despite difficulties that don't disappear just because it's Christmas (Post "Healthy Attitudes, Part XIV, Mental Health, 11/7/19), all is well.  I hope for you too.  

This poem is one of my favorites.  It was first published on Christmas Eve 1915 in the London Times, in the midst of WWI.  My grandfather was in that war, stationed in France.  Imagine, soldiers fighting and dying all over Europe.  Not so different from today when many countries are war-torn and refugees are on the move.  Not so different from the time of Mary and Joseph.

The Oxen
by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

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. 

A 'barton' is a farm building and a 'coomb' is a small valley.  Hardy seems to be saying that one Christmas Eve as a child he sat by the fire and listened to one of the elders tell of the oxen kneeling before the Christ child.  Now he wonders how many people still believe such a fancy, that the oxen would know to kneel in reverence before the child.  But he hasn't given up hope that it was so.  The manger, the birth, the holy child, the traditions and customs of old.  For myself, I too would "go with him in the gloom, knowing it would be so."