The Oxen

By Thomas Hardy

“The Oxen” is a Christmas poem by Thomas Hardy, first printed in The Times of London on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1915, and collected in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (Macmillan, 1917). In 16 lines, it recalls an old country belief that farm animals kneel at midnight on Christmas Eve, and it has become one of the most often anthologized modern poems about faith and doubt.

Our reading is that the poem is not about belief but about wanting to believe. It moves from a childhood “we” who never thought to doubt to a lone adult “I” who no longer can, and it ends not with faith but with a willingness to walk out into the dark in case the old story is true. That small, honest hope is what makes it a Christmas poem for skeptics.

ON THIS PAGE
Summary · The Poem · Background · Analysis and Themes · Form and Technique · Notable Lines · Themes · FAQ
Glossary · In Popular Culture · Related Poems

Summary

It is midnight on Christmas Eve, and a group of people, the speaker among them, sit by a fire. An older person remarks that the oxen are all kneeling now.

As children, the listeners pictured the gentle animals in their straw-filled pen, and no one thought to doubt that they were really kneeling.

The speaker then steps into the present. Few people would dream up such a lovely idea nowadays, he says. Yet if someone invited him on Christmas Eve to come and see the oxen kneel in the lonely farmyard of his childhood, he would go along in the dark, hoping it might be true.

The Poem

The text below follows Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses as transcribed by Project Gutenberg (eBook #3255) from the 1919 Macmillan edition. Hardy dated the poem “1915” at its foot. We have kept the book’s indentation of the even-numbered lines and set the opening words, printed in capitals in the book, in normal type.

In the version printed in The Times, line 9 read “believe” where the book has “weave.” Line numbers on this page count the 16 lines of verse.

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.

Background

Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840, at Higher Bockhampton in Dorset, in the southwest of England, and grew up among the farms and church music of a rural parish. He trained as an architect before novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) and Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) made him famous.

After the hostile reception of Jude the Obscure (1895), he gave up fiction and devoted the rest of his long life to poetry, starting with Wessex Poems (1898). He died at Max Gate, his house near Dorchester, on January 11, 1928.

Hardy was raised in the Church of England and loved its music and rituals all his life, but as a young man, he lost his religious faith. Many of his poems look back with a mix of affection and regret at the belief he could no longer share.

“The Oxen” draws on a folk belief known in the West Country and elsewhere that cattle kneel in their stalls at midnight on Christmas Eve, in honor of Christ’s birth in a stable. Hardy is often said to have heard the story from his mother as a child.

The poem first appeared in The Times on Christmas Eve 1915, when Britain was well into the second winter of World War I. Hardy changed one word, “believe” to “weave,” before collecting it in Moments of Vision two years later.

It has since been set to music many times. Gerald Finzi included it in his song cycle By Footpath and Stile, and Ralph Vaughan Williams used it in his Christmas cantata Hodie (1954).

Analysis and Themes

The poem is only four stanzas long, but it covers a whole life: a childhood scene, an adult judgment on it, and a final admission that the judgment is not the end of the story.

From “We” to “I”

The first two stanzas belong to “we.” The listeners sit “in a flock,” a word that makes them sound like sheep or a congregation, and none of them doubts the elder’s words. Belief here is something shared, as natural as the warmth of the fire.

In the third stanza, the voice changes to “I feel.” The speaker is now alone with his thoughts, and the change of pronoun shows what has been lost: not only the belief but the community that held it.

Faith as a Fancy

Line 9 calls the old belief a “fancy,” something made up, and the book version says few would “weave” it. The word suggests something handmade and homely, like cloth spun at home, and it makes the belief sound both beautiful and old-fashioned.

The version in The Times said few would “believe” it. The revision moves the problem from the believer to the world: it is not only that people no longer believe such stories, but that no one makes them anymore.

A Specific Place

The last stanza turns from general memory to one place: “the lonely barton by yonder coomb / Our childhood used to know.” “Barton” and “coomb” are words of rural southwest England, for a farmyard and a small valley.

The dialect words root the hope in a real landscape. The speaker is not imagining a stable in Bethlehem but a barn he knew as a boy, which makes the invitation feel personal rather than doctrinal.

Hope Without Certainty

The poem ends on “Hoping it might be so,” not “knowing” or “believing.” The speaker would go “in the gloom,” a word that suggests both the midnight dark and his own state of mind.

Many readers find this ending more moving than a confident statement of faith would be. It admits doubt and still leaves the door open, which is perhaps why the poem is read in churches and by nonbelievers alike.

Form and Technique

“The Oxen” has four quatrains rhymed ABAB, with a regular pattern of longer and shorter lines. The odd lines usually have four beats and the even lines three, the rhythm of the ballads and hymns Hardy grew up with.

The meter is basically iambic but loosened with extra unstressed syllables, as in “an EL-der SAID as we SAT in a FLOCK.” This gives the poem a relaxed, spoken feel, like a story told by the fire.

The final line is the shortest and the quietest: “HOP-ing it MIGHT be SO.” Its falling rhythm, starting on a stress and fading away, matches the tentative hope it expresses.

Hardy runs the sentence over the gap between the third and fourth stanzas. The imagined invitation, “Come; see the oxen kneel,” spills across the stanza break into “In the lonely barton,” so the reader, like the speaker, is drawn forward into the scene.

The diction mixes the old and the new. “Twelve of the clock,” “yonder,” and the dialect words belong to an older England, while “In these years!” sounds like a modern man commenting on his own time.

Notable Lines

Three passages carry most of the poem’s fame.

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”

Lines 1 to 2

The opening sets the hour with old-fashioned precision and then hands the poem to the elder’s voice. The calm present tense, “Now they are all on their knees,” presents the legend as simple fact.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,

Lines 9 to 10

The turn of the poem. The alliteration of “fair a fancy few” lingers over the lost belief, and the exclamation mark in “In these years!” brings in the speaker’s present, a world at war and short on wonder.

I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

Lines 15 to 16

The famous close. The speaker does not claim faith, only the wish for it, and the willingness to act on that wish by going out into the dark.

Themes

Four ideas run through the poem.

Faith and Doubt

The poem sets a child’s easy belief beside an adult’s doubt and refuses to let either one win. The speaker cannot believe, but he cannot quite stop hoping.

Childhood and Memory

The kneeling oxen belong to “our childhood,” and the poem treats that time with tenderness. Memory is what keeps the old belief alive even after the belief itself has gone.

Loss of Tradition

“In these years” points to a world that no longer weaves such fancies. Published in wartime, the poem mourns a vanishing country culture as well as a vanishing faith.

Christmas

The season gives the poem its setting and its legend. Christmas Eve is the one night when even a doubter might be tempted to go and look.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions readers most often ask about “The Oxen.”

What Is “The Oxen” by Thomas Hardy About?

It recalls a childhood Christmas Eve when an older person said the oxen were kneeling in their stalls to honor Christ’s birth, and the children believed it. The adult speaker no longer believes, but he says that if someone invited him to see the oxen kneel, he would go, “Hoping it might be so.”

When Was “The Oxen” Written and Published?

Hardy dated the poem 1915. It first appeared in The Times of London on December 24, 1915, during World War I, and was collected in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses in 1917.

Is the Legend of the Kneeling Oxen Real?

It is a real folk belief, not something Hardy invented. In parts of England and elsewhere, people said that cattle knelt in their stalls at midnight on Christmas Eve in honor of the Nativity. No one, of course, has shown that the animals actually do.

Did Thomas Hardy Believe in God?

Not in a conventional way. Hardy grew up in the Church of England and kept a lifelong love of its music and services, but he lost his faith as a young man. Poems like “The Oxen” and “The Darkling Thrush” express a longing for belief rather than belief itself.

What Do “Barton” and “Coomb” Mean?

Both are words from the rural southwest of England. A barton is a farmyard or the farm buildings around it, and a coomb (often spelled “combe”) is a small, steep-sided valley. Together they place the oxen in a real Dorset landscape.

Glossary

Several words in the poem are old-fashioned or belong to the dialect of Hardy’s Dorset.

• twelve of the clock (line 1): An old way of saying twelve o’clock; here, midnight.
• elder (line 3): An older person, someone respected for age and experience.
• flock (line 3): A group gathered together, a word also used for sheep and for a church congregation.
• hearthside (line 4): Beside the hearth, the floor of a fireplace.
• strawy (line 6): Full of straw.
• fancy (line 9): An imagined idea; a pleasing fiction.
• barton (line 13): Dialect word for a farmyard, or the farm buildings behind a farmhouse.
• yonder (line 13): Over there; at a distance but within sight.
• coomb (line 13): A small valley or hollow, usually spelled “combe.”

In Popular Culture

“The Oxen” is one of Hardy’s most often set poems. Besides Gerald Finzi and Ralph Vaughan Williams, composers including Alan Rawsthorne and Benjamin Britten have written choral settings, and it is often read at Christmas carol services in Britain.

Related Poems

If “The Oxen” speaks to you, these poems share its season, its doubt, or its longing for an older faith.

• The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy: Another Hardy poem in which a doubting speaker glimpses a hope he cannot share, written at the turn of the century.
• On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity by John Milton: A Nativity ode that, like the kneeling oxen legend, imagines all of creation falling silent in honor of the birth.
• Love Came Down at Christmas by Christina Rossetti: A Victorian carol that states with simple confidence the faith Hardy’s speaker can only hope for.
• Journey of the Magi by T. S. Eliot: A modern Christmas poem in which a traveler is left unsettled by what he has seen.
• Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold: A Victorian lament for the “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” of the sea of faith.