Audiobook · read by volunteers
Oxen
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
Read by Annie Coleman Rothenberg, Esther, JemmaBlythe, Kristin Hughes (1974-2021), Susan Denney, Sam Stinson, William Haseltine · 7 chapters · 7 min
About the book
Seven voices, one short poem. Thomas Hardy’s “The Oxen” begins on Christmas Eve, in a farmhouse where the family sits close to the fire, and someone remarks that at this very hour the oxen in the barn are said to kneel in the straw. It is an old country belief, tender and a little strange, and Hardy turns it into a few quiet stanzas about wonder, doubt and the wish to believe.
This collection gathers seven separate readings of the same text, each by a different volunteer, and the whole thing lasts only a few minutes. That is its charm: you can hear how a single set of lines changes with the pace, the pauses and the warmth of each speaker. One reader may lean into the stillness of the scene, another into the gentle regret of its closing lines.
Seven short readings, a few quiet minutes: a gentle poem for a winter evening.
Introduction
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is remembered above all as a novelist of rural England, the author of Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd. Yet he thought of himself, in his later decades, chiefly as a poet, and after the late 1890s he wrote almost nothing but verse. “The Oxen” belongs to that late period and appeared in 1915, in the shadow of the First World War.
The poem rests on a piece of folklore from the West Country, where Hardy grew up: the belief that on Christmas Eve, at midnight, farm animals kneel in homage to the newborn Christ. Hardy recalls hearing the tale as a child and ends on a note that is neither triumphant nor bitter, but wistful. He admits he would still go along, if someone invited him to see for himself. That honest balance between scepticism and longing is typical of his voice.
This recording is a multi-version project: seven LibriVox volunteers each read the same poem, for a total of just a few minutes. It began as a weekly poetry project in December 2006, timed for the Christmas season. Short poems are well suited to this approach, because a reader’s tone, tempo and emphasis show up clearly when the words are few.
The collection is a pleasant way to compare readings, to learn the poem by ear, or simply to enjoy a classic of English Christmas verse in several different voices. It is free to listen to, and it takes less time than a cup of tea.
Public domain
Thomas Hardy died in 1928: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text