Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies! O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there! Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies
Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘The Starlight Night’
MIDNIGHT, in the midnight of the year. We were late back from the carol service and the inevitable post-event mince pies, but I could not go to bed. There were animals to be checked, which was no chore really: who would not want to be. In Christtime, shepherds on the night-watch were seated on the ground; the modern shepherd walks or takes the quad-bike, but the principle of watchful care remains the same. Shepherding is eternal.
