It is the bitter time of year When iron is the ground, With hasp and sheathing of black ice The forest lakes are bound,
The world lies snugly under snow, Asleep without a sound. All the night long in trooping squares The sentry stars go by,
The silent and unwearying hosts That bear man company, And with their pure enkindling fires Keep vigils lone and high.
Through the dead hours before the dawn, When the frost snaps the sill, From chestnut-wooded ridge to sea The earth lies dark and still,
Till one great silver planet shines Above the eastern hill. It is the star of Gabriel, The herald of the Word
In days when messengers of God With sons of men conferred, Who brought the tidings of great joy The watching shepherds heard;
The mystic light that moved to lead The wise of long ago, Out of the great East where they dreamed Of truths they could not know,
To seek some good that should assuage The world's most ancient woe. O well, believe, they loved their dream, Those children of the star,
Who saw the light and followed it, Prophetical, afar,— Brave Caspar, clear-eyed Melchior, And eager Balthasar.
Another year slips to the void, And still with omen bright Above the sleeping doubting world The day-star is alight,—
The waking signal flashed of old In the blue Syrian night. But who are now as wise as they Whose faith could read the sign
Of the three gifts that shall suffice To honor the divine, And show the tread of common life Ineffably benign?
Whoever wakens on a day Happy to know and be, To enjoy the air, to love his kind, To labor, to be free,—
Already his enraptured soul Lives in eternity. For him with every rising sun The year begins anew;
The fertile earth receives her lord, And prophecy comes true, Wondrously as a fall of snow, Dear as a drench of dew.
Who gives his life for beauty's need, King Caspar could no more; Who serves the truth with single mind Shall stand with Melchior;
And love is all that Balthasar In crested censer bore.
Cookies on Poetry Cove