Surely it would have woken the baby?
Dec. 14th, 2005 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyI went for my usual walk round the block at lunchtime and, being the daring, unpredictable, devil-may-care sort I am, I went round the block to the left of my office instead of the right as I normally do. Will the madness never end? Anyway, it was a good thing I did, because I don't normally have to go to that part of town for anything else, and so I would have completely missed St George Bank's nativity display. They've got these lovely old-fashioned figurines, about 30cm high, arranged in the side window. The whole cast: baby Jesus in a manger, Mary, Joseph, a couple of angels, three kings, a handful of shepherds, a donkey, a sheep... and someone playing the bagpipes. We must have skipped that part of the story at school.
And while on a Christmas theme, something stolen from several people, including![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
junediamanti and agatha_s:
Spread the spirit, regardless of what faith or non-faith you are. Post a poem apt to the season. If not a poem, a carol or an extract from a book you liked. Spread the lurve. Or something.
The Oxen - Thomas Hardy
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.
I mocked poor old Thos a few months back for his preposterous and improbable (and possibly sherry-fuelled) Christmas story, "What the shepherd saw", so I'll make it up to him by choosing this poem. I first came across this when it was mentioned in Antonia Forest's Attic Term, and had to look it up. I've learnt so much from Forest's novels, not least that "Dickens-haters invariably like Thackeray". Until then, I thought I was the only Dickens-hater in existence (although I wouldn't say I like Thackeray so much as tolerate him).
On a completely unrelated note, the spellcheck wants me to change "Thackeray" to "Bullwhackers". Foolish thing.
And while on a Christmas theme, something stolen from several people, including
junediamanti and agatha_s:Spread the spirit, regardless of what faith or non-faith you are. Post a poem apt to the season. If not a poem, a carol or an extract from a book you liked. Spread the lurve. Or something.
The Oxen - Thomas Hardy
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.
I mocked poor old Thos a few months back for his preposterous and improbable (and possibly sherry-fuelled) Christmas story, "What the shepherd saw", so I'll make it up to him by choosing this poem. I first came across this when it was mentioned in Antonia Forest's Attic Term, and had to look it up. I've learnt so much from Forest's novels, not least that "Dickens-haters invariably like Thackeray". Until then, I thought I was the only Dickens-hater in existence (although I wouldn't say I like Thackeray so much as tolerate him).
On a completely unrelated note, the spellcheck wants me to change "Thackeray" to "Bullwhackers". Foolish thing.
