It will be a cold night tonight, my friend:
the frost glitters and snaps in the still air.
Stamp your feet and rub your hands as you tend
the sheep! The sky is crimson over there,
stained by the sun in the day’s dying flight –
a fiery canopy of angels’ wings,
scarlet and gold in opalescent light,
as if the whole world in its radiance sings
with joyful expectation! Now the sky
grows dark save for one bright star overhead.
Then, in the silence suddenly, the cry
of one new born. Come, friends, we must take bread –
the flocks are safely huddled in the fold,
but it lacks many hours until the dawn –
and bring that fleece, for it is a cruel, cold
night for any little lamb to be born.
Jennifer Henderson [b. 1929]