WHY so soon with flocks returning?

Scarce the night lamps ceased their burning,

When we heard the distant bleating

While the stars were still retreating

Home so early in the morning!

To the fold at early dawning,

Ill, dear father, art thou? Surely

Has some lambie been unruly—

Must thou go across the mountain,

Search by vale, and rock, and fountain

But thy face is bright and beaming,

And thy eyes with joy are gleaming

Thus she chattered to her father,

Eager for some reason given

But the father, heart o’erflowing

Felt the spirit in him burning—

And, with tender touch, down bending

His life-calling sweetly lending

Then his home flock, like the other,

Father, children, precious mother—

Knelt to thank the covenant-keeping

In their waking and their sleeping,

This—and then began the story

When the angels came from glory,

On the hillside near our flocks were sleeping,

While we, reclining by, our watch were keeping;

The sun had set in a glow of splendor,

And the stars looked down so pure and tender

That we felt a hush pervading

Every breast; for the fading

Of the day had been so slow,

And the twilight’s gentle glow

Had left the earth so still

That over plain and hill

A gentle sleep seemed holding all

As quiet as beneath a pall

Of death. When every heart

Was hushed, and sure to start

At slightest move or sound,

From sky or earth or ground,

We would not break with song

The silence, which so strong

Had reigned supreme the while,

But sought we to beguile

With word of prophecy the hour,

Talking of Him whose conquering power

Our fallen Israel should restore,

And make her glory as of yore.

The Lord seemed wondrous near us then;

As when our father Jacob dreamed, or when

The great law-giver stood on hallowed ground

And heard Jehovah speak in words profound;

When, suddenly, burst on the ravished ear

A voice like music, or like trumpet clear,

And words most wonderful did there proclaim:

Tidings, glad tidings of the glorious Name!

He bade us haste to Bethlehem away

To find the Babe there born to us this day;

And then, when Paradise I see complete,

May it such strains to these glad ears repeat!

Then as from cloud the pealing thunder breaks

Till ’neath its voice the very mountain shakes,

So burst in chorus the celestial choir,

Each tongue aflame with heaven’s own altar fire,

To celebrate, as by Jehovah sent,

The long foretold and now fulfilled event—

Our own Messiah’s birth in Bethlehem town!

The Christ of God from heaven to earth come down!

The singing ceased, and all was still again

Save the sweet echo of “Good-will to men”;

The choir had flown; our flocks were all at rest,

And could we, after such a vision blest,

Await the dawning to behold the Stranger

Which cradled lay in Bethlehem’s lowly manger?

If we forgot our flocks, in haste to see the sight

Revealed to us by angel hosts last night,

Was it so strange, when honored thus were we

To be the first of all our race to see,

Worship and welcome to this world the King

Of whom the Prophets old did write and sing?

And so we hastened, sped, and tarried not

Until we found, O, joy! the very spot

Where lay this lily from sweet Paradise,

Angelic beauty there, before our eyes!

We bent, we worshiped, kissed the Babe so fair,

Then hastened back through all the perfumed air

To find our flocks by angel guards attended,

Better by them than by our skill defended.

Then each with gladness homeward sped away

To tell the tidings of this wondrous day.

The questions asked as round the father’s knee

The children pressed in eager ecstasy,

I will not try to tell. I cease

My story of the “Prince of Peace,”

This only adding—though the talk was long—

There followed it this burst of sacred song:

O, thou Infant holy!

In thy cradle lowly,

Feeble stranger seeming,

Though almighty. Deeming

It thy pleasure,

Even in this measure,