Classic Poem

HOW THE THREE WISE MEN FOLLOWED THE STAR

Son , I will heed you, hearken while ye may,
My strength is ebbing, shadows close me in,
And I can hear the women wailing low
Beside the entrance; hear the camels breathe
Heavily, and feel your arm beneath my head.

You shall be sheik of many-herded hills,
Lord of the desert, brother of the wind,
Master of swarming, dusky-throated tribes
Almost as numberless as are the sands
And twice as restless — but thy arm is strong
And God hath blessed thee when he made thee wise.

Yea, I will tell thee how I saw the child
On that strange journey to Jerusalem,
In those glad days when I was young and dreamed,
And saw great visions flash among the stars,
And felt the throbbing of the desert's breast,
And thrilled in touching all the friendly hands
That leapt to meet my clasping, swift and sure —
Such friends as thy Balthasar is to thee.
Such dreams as flushed the beauty of thy face
One night gone by, when I hung o'er your bed
In the dim watches when you fell asleep,
Wearied with tending him who gave thee life.
So even I, your father, crept away
From this dull couch that holds me prisoned now,
And crouched beside you for one thankful hour,
Blessing that God who gave to me in age
To see my body's image live again.

Damp was your forehead, and your breath was warm,
Smiling your lips, and peaceful still your face
Where the dark lashes of your eyelids drooped
Over your cheek, and ruddy health sat crowned
Upon his dusky throne of sandalwood.
Then was my soul uplifted and I cried:
" I fear not now the parting of the ways,
I go to meet the shadows; but I live
Body and soul, in him I leave behind.
No death can shroud the eyes that children close. "

Yea, I must hasten, hold me to your breast
Until your manhood feeds my dying flame,
Only so long as needs to end the tale.
Even now I hear the jingling bells of Death
Riding his camel through the silent sand
Nearer and ever nearer — hold me close.

'Twas in those days of wonder long ago
There gleamed one night within the desert sky
In white magnificence, a stranger star
Than ever yet had herded on the hills
Of heaven; white its fleece and knit of thread
Spun of the moonbeams, shining through the night,
Ever and ever eastward beckoning
Until I rose and followed, drunk with awe,
Shimbar, the camel, racing with the wind,
And I upon him fronting toward the star.

Afar behind me stretched the ghostly sands,
Billow on heaving billow like the sea
Stilled in its restless motion changelessly.
Bathed in the mystic glamor of the star,
Ever before me stretching seemed the way,
Leaving the gray horizon streaked with dawn,
Climbing the long, white pathway of the star,
Until I scarce had noticed at my side
The swift, light running of two camels more,
And knew Balthasar followed after me,
Selekmar with him, in their eyes the star.

So through the night; but when the great red day
Climbed in his splendor over the eastern sands,
Paling the whiter beauty of the night,
We slept beneath the slender-shading palms
Where in a tiny hollow bubbled up
The spring that vanished in the amorous air
As that white star within the arms of day.
Then on again as soon as set the sun
Behind us, weltering all the world in flame,
Onward and ever eastward toward the star
That nightly seemed to stoop more near to earth
And those three faces flushed and eager-eyed.
Until one morning when the dawn was gray
We saw the mighty-walled Jerusalem
With her great temple like a priceless pearl
Hid in the swarthy bosom of a queen,
Gleam marble-white from out the dusky town.

And yet the star still beckoned past the gates
Ever to eastward, drooping lower now
Until it blazed so strangely terrible
It seemed well-nigh to hem us round about
In radiance of thousand flashing wings,
And witness of unseen, observing eyes.
But when we stopped a passing morning flock
Of goats the herdsman drove to sacrifice,
He could not see the glory of the star
Although it shone more brightly than the sun.
Fang-toothed he was, with knotted, close-clutched hands,
And busy eyes that traveled with his flock
So ceaselessly he never saw the sky
Onward he plodded up the dusty road,
And left behind the clamorous, bleating wind;
He thought us mad to go in search of stars.

The east was paling, but the star stood clear
And drove the sun back with a flaming sword.
Then to the southward fled we with the wind,
Until at last we came to Bethlehem,
Shut in the jealous hills that shoulder close,
And in a stable found the new-born babe.

Closer, my son, strength of my body's strength,
Warm with the youth that once my pulses throbbed —
The jingling bells ring clearer through the night,
And Death rides swift across the shifting sand.

But what saw we, sons of the desert wind,
In that white, pain-transfigured mother face
That brought us kneeling? Only her great dark eyes
And feeding breast, and weary smile of pride.
And yet together, shoulder to shoulder there,
We knelt in silence, worshiping the child.

Then through me surging swept a wave of awe,
Cresting my reason with wild harmony
And wordless music of low plaintiveness,
Sweet as the lullabies that mothers croon —
Only, the stars were singing, and the sun
Struck out ten thousand molten notes at once
From the vast circle of his wheeling moons.
And through the corridors where planets flame
Rolled the long reverberations, echoing.

I was at one with chaos when God's word
Formed from the void Creation's crystal shell.
Within me leapt my immortality;
Back to His love I stretched me through my sires,
And knew that forward through the centuries
My children's sons would round the circle home.
God stirred within me and I knew His face.
Shining upon me with the self-same peace
That smiled in slumber from your perfect lips
One night gone by when I, your father, knelt
Beside your body all one thankful hour
And saw at once beginning and the end,
The past and future hand in hand with God.

And now thou knowest — hark! Again the bells —
The lights grow dim — the women, too, are still —
The dawn-wind rises. So, with Death I mount
And make my last, long journey toward the Star!