A Land Girl’s Carol
O Bethlehem is far away,
And peace on earth is far,
But over an English cattle stall
There shines the Christmas star.
The cattle there, the straw and all
Beneath my lantern’s light—
The immemorial things remain
As on that other night;
And shadows of a war may not,
Try as they will, deny
The simple things—the beasts, the star,
And a Holy Babe’s sweet cry.
Written by Enid Barraud, a Land Girl in Cambridgeshire, in Christmas 1944
Source: Poems of the Land Army, p.17
