After Thomas Hardy's Oxen

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.

Thomas Hardy

****

I know, despite the comfort of
the hallowed tale,
there were no angels then
who came aloft
upon that ancient Christmas eve
to regions rounding Bethlehem,
and from on high
proclaimed "fear not",
to humbled men,
and spoke of swaddled wonderment
new born
in David's royal citadel,
and sang in gloried light,
God's favours on the world.

And yet  if someone were to say to me
on Yoolis night,
at midnight's stroke
"Let us go out
into the dark and cold,
and stand ourselves
upon the hill
in shepherds' stead
beneath the starry host above.
For all the pinioned ones are gathered there again,
ablaze,
and taking breath
to choir, exalt,  the sleepy earth,
as they did long ago",
I'd go there with him eagerly
in hope that it were so.