The Oxen (Christopher Upton)

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• (Posted 2023-12-03)  CPDL #77791:       

Editor: Christopher Upton (submitted 2023-12-03).   Score information: A4, 8 pages, 224 kB   Copyright: CC BY NC SA

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: The Oxen
Composer: Christopher Upton
Lyricist: Thomas Hardy
Number of voices: 5vv   Voicing: SSATB
Genre: Sacred, Carol

Language: English
Instruments: Piano

First published: 2023
Description: 

Original text and translations

English text

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.