Christmas Poetry Review - Thomas Hardy

Hardy"s Christmas poem "The Oxen" refers to an old Xmas folk legend that Hardy knew as a child

. The descendents of the oxen who had witnessed the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem were believed to still kneel to commemorate Jesus" birth every Christmas Eve at midnight, just like their ancestors had done at the time.

The rich vivid imagery of the poem as a whole is atmospheric. It opens with a simple statement that sets the Xmas scene very well: "Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock". Most people have a sense of what midnight on Christmas Eve means to them. Very likely the magical childhood wonder of Christmas, or simply the warm cheeriness and goodwill to all men Xmas feeling is called up by this powerful statement.

As well as Christmas Eve being a main feature in the poem, the words "embers in fireside ease" makes one imagine the warmth and that the "flock" had been huddling there all evening. One also thinks of the children imagining the oxen with childlike innocence. In one"s mind"s ear the elder can be heard saying "Now they are all on their knees". And of course the powerful metaphoric personification of the oxen conjures up images of them kneeling on Christmas Eve before the baby Jesus in his manger.

But half way through the poem doubt is called into the belief about the Oxen kneeling. It jumps ahead a few years in the third verse where the cynicism of war is brought in with the metaphoric statement "So fair a fancy few would weave in these years!" The Christmas Oxen Legend was by then generally seen as a tall story. People had become racked by cynicism through the horror of World War I which was in full swing at the time of the poem"s publication in 1915.

The lovely soft alliteration "meek mild" in the second verse is hereby contrasted with that of "fair a fancy few", "f" for "father" offering a more cynical edge than that of "m" for mother. And the personification "Our childhood used to know" hints that those days must have been well and truly over: it wasn"t even the people themselves that "used to know", only their childhood.

Some critics say this poem ends on a gloomy note, and the warmth of the fire and childhood innocence in the first half is indeed contrasted with war and the cold "lonely" "gloom" of the outside in the second half. But to me it retains the magic of Christmas overall. Use of enjambment, especially between the last two verses, subtly increases the reader"s suspense until the end of the poem where it states: "I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so." A loss is hereby being mourned but there is still hope, and therefore Christmas cheer! This sort of hope in the face of war reminds me of the Christmas truce when soldiers mingled peacefully in no-man"s land along the Western Front on Christmas Day in 1914.

The poem has a catchy rhythmical structure with four verses in the form of 2 rhyming couplets to each verse in an abab rhyme scheme. For a thorough analysis of the poem"s rhythm see http://englishliteraturestudynotes.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/oxen-by-thomas-hardy-analysis.html

And for a much more thorough analysis of the poem with some excellent points linking it to war see http://rawrthespot.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/poem-analysis-essay-oxen.html

The above is just my own interpretation and is not meant to be a definitive and exhaustive analysis of how Hardy meant the poem to be read. Happy Christmas to all poetry critics, especially the ones who completely disagree with me!

by: Helen Silverwood

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