39.
The three holy kings from the Eastern land
Inquired in every city:
Where goeth the road to Bethlehem,
Ye boys and maidens pretty?
The young and the old, they could not tell,
The kings went onward discreetly;
They follow’d the track of a golden star,
That sparkled brightly and sweetly.
The star stood still over Joseph’s house,
And they enter’d the dwelling lowly;
The oxen bellow’d, the infant cried,
While sang the three kings holy.
40.
My child, we once were children,
Two children, little and gay;
We crawl’d inside the henhouse,
And hid in the straw in play.
We crow’d as the cocks are accustom’d,
And when the people came by,
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”—and they fancied
’Twas really the cock’s shrill cry.
The chests within our courtyard
With paper we nicely lined,
And in them lived together,
In a dwelling quite to our mind.
The aged cat of our neighbour
Came oft to visit us there;
We made her our bows and our curtsies,
And plenty of compliments fair.