In the dark night, while all around me sleep,
My questing thoughts go backward through the years,
To find and bring some worthy thing
Shall waken life from out its slumber deep—
Shall scatter lowering clouds of doubts and fears,
And crown Love King.
Taking old forms from tales of days long dead,
Like slow beasts padding softly through the night—
Yet, far or nigh, I shall descry
Somewhere my Bethlehem—so piloted
By tinkling bells of hope that catch the light
Of star-lit sky.
I know not where my search for Christ shall end—
The kings and priests I question answer not.
Perhaps their will is still to kill:—
Perchance He seeks to walk with me as friend:—
Or, all unknown, shares the despised one's lot,
Rejected still.
Yet am I sure that I shall know the sign;
My heart shall wake and cry: "This—This is He!"
Him shall I find, however blind
And slow to recognize the hand divine.
He shall His own unfailing witness be:—
Him shall I find.
And, oh, what joy the news abroad to speed,
That men from sorrow as from toil who sleep
May hear the song that Heaven's throng
Brings down to earth, and so be comforted
For woes that make strong men like women weep,
And all the wrong.
Then all the dark shall melt into the dawn;
Like jewels of the New Jerusalem,
Earth's streets shall shine with light divine,
And all her roof-tops gladden with the morn;
Then every home shall be a Bethlehem
Where Christ is born.
IV.
What the Wise Men Saw
Founded upon an old legend
What the Wise Men Saw