This week is not the time for imposing my own verse on you; nor is it time to bring poems to your attention by far better poets than I am. I’m not saying that the poem below by Thomas Hardy is not up to my standards, but rather that its theme has a narrow window of appreciation – the holiday season – loved by all – mostly.
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.
A note about the words in The Oxen: a ‘barton’ is a farm building, and a ‘coomb’ is a small valley.
The Oxen was published on Christmas Eve 1915 in The Times. It is one of Thomas Hardy’s best-loved poems, often anthologized.
Background Thoughts
This is a poem filled with both joy and doubt, an unusual combination, especially during this December season. We can be quite sure that Hardy’s poem arose from an actual fireside incident that he experienced. The day appears to be Christmas Eve at midnight, and if we allow ourselves a bit of imagination, Hardy was sitting with other men, perhaps having a pint or two, seeing in the day to come.
A reader would do well to recall the historical timing of The Oxen: 1915 during the “Great War.” For many, disillusionment was the order of the day. Even so, many people attempted to hang on to customs and ritual practices from the past – a dilemma left unresolved for many.
It appears that the “doubt” comes from some of Hardy’s companions (and from Hardy himself) who apparently doubted the idea that oxen knelt, as legend would have it, at the birth of a man named Jesus. In essence, the gentlemen were celebrating the anniversary of a birthday of a man – not so hard to accept. But oxen kneeling?! That’s a different pickle to swallow. This is where the doubt enters: “So fair a fancy few would weave / in these years!” It seems our lament about what has been lost in modernity was also of concern one hundred years ago. In addition, Hardy, with his “Our childhood used to know,” waxes nostalgic for a time of lost innocence. It’s intriguing that Hardy, himself straddles the fence between belief and doubt; he cannot quite find himself on the side of belief. Even so, yearning for a childhood ability to believe, he makes a decision that he would “go with him,” His expression of hope in the final line sits like a poignant cherub on the bookend of the poem. I dare say that many people today occupy that bookend with Hardy.
Exploration #1: Can joy and doubt exist simultaneously?
Exploration #2: Have people today given up the Christmas legend, or is it more important than ever? What are the profiles of those of each persuasion?
Exploration #3: What emotions, if any, do you feel when you come to the last part of the poem where Hardy expressed his own combination of doubt, hope, and longed-for belief.
Final Spoiler: Thomas Hardy lost his spiritual faith when he was quite young; yet, he continued to attend the Anglican Church for love of its rituals and liturgy.
#2 Honestly, given all that I've read these past eight years, about the United States and North American Indian tribes, especially treaties between our nations, when I read such poems, or narratives, I parallel the era when the document was written with what I know so far about the disparate living conditions of our two cultures. "What was happening on reservations at this time? How were people living?"
ReplyDeleteGranted, the bulk of Americans and immigrants were desperately poor and lived in precarious times, as is somewhat true even today, but no less than people where tsunamis, earthquakes, wildfires, tornadoes, floods have suddenly raged, were the lives of American Indians destroyed, nationwide, in seemingly the blink of any eye under the premise of Manifest Destiny.
In less time since I graduated from high school--now, fifty years--the whole of the Plains Cultures, although empowered by treaty: " ... all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land." were driven from their homes and lands by soldiers, swept away on the backs of the Bison and plowed under by Iron Horses.
Hello WW - thank you for your thoughtful response and for reminding us how blinded we can all be (regardless of nation, tribe, or culture) to the circumstances of others. We do hang on to our own rituals and traditions, and tend not to look out toward others' cherished ways. Various paths each has their own gods, deities, or none at all. Can we respect the diversity, yet stay loyal to our own path's leaders? I dare to say we can. So, thank you for paralleling the western view with other perspectives. Much appreciated. JP Savage
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