Classic Poem

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.

1915