and make
Moonlight and starlight sweet for earth's sad sake!
Or, if heaven bids ye lock in silence still
Conquest of peace, and coming of good-will,
Till times to be, then--oh, you placid sheep!
Ah, thrice-blest shepherds! suffer if we creep
Back through the tangled thicket of the years
To graze in your fair flock, to strain our ears
With listening herdsmen, if, perchance, one note
Of such high singing in the fine air float;
If any rock thrills yet with that great strain
We did not hear, and shall not hear, again;
If any olive-leaf at Bethlehem
Lisps still one syllable vouchsafed to them;
If some stream, conscious still--some breeze--be stirred
With echo of th' immortal words ye heard.

What was it that ye heard? the wind of night
Playing in cheating tones, with touches light,
Amid the palm-plumes? or, one stop outblown
Of planetary music, so far flown
Earthwards, that to those innocent ears 'twas brought
Which bent the mighty measure to their thought?
Or, haply, from breast-shaped Beth-Haccarem,
The hill of Herod, some waft sent to them
Of storming drums and trumps, at festival
Held in the Idumaean's purple hall?
Or, it may be, some Aramaic song
Of country lovers, after partings long
Meeting anew, with much "good will" indeed,
Blown by some swain upon his Jordan reed?
Nay, nay! your abbas back ye did not fling,
From each astonished ear, for swains to sing
Their village-verses clear; for sounds well-known
Of wandering breeze, or whispering trees, or tone
Of Herod's trumpets. And ye did not gaze
Heart-startled on the stars (albeit the rays
Of that lone orb shot, sparkling, from the east
Unseen before), for these, largest and least,
Were fold-lamps, lighted nightly: and ye knew
Far differing glory in the night's dark blue
Suddenly lit with rose, and pierced with spike
Of golden spear-beam. Oh, a dream, belike!
Some far-fetched vision, new to peasant's sleep,
Of paradise stripped bare!--But, why thus keep
Secrets for them? This bar, which doth enclose
Better and nobler souls, why burst for those
Who supped on the parched pulse, and lapped the stream,
And each, at the same hour, dreams the same dream!
Or, easier still, they lied! Yet, wherefore, then
"Rise, and go up to Bethlehem," and unpen
To wolf and jackal all their hapless fold
So they might "see these things which had been told
In heaven's own voice