One of the Shepherds

We were out on the hills that nightTo watch our sheep;Drowsily by the fire we layWhere the waning flame did flicker and leap,And some were weary and half asleep,And some talked low of their flocks and the frightOf a lion that day.

But I had drawn from the others apart;I was only a lad,And the night's great silence so filled my heartThat I dared not talk and I dared not jest;The moon had gone down behind the hillAnd even the wind of the desert was still;As the touch of death the air was cold,And the world seemed all outworn and old;Yet a poignant delight in my soul was guest,And I could not be sad.

Still were my thoughts the thoughts of youthUnder the skies:I dreamed of the holy and tender truthThat shone for me in my mother's eyes;Of my little sister's innocent grace,And the mirthful lure in the olive faceOf a maid I had seen at the well that day,Singing low as I passed that way,And so sweet and wild were the notes of her song,That I listened long.

Was it the dawn that silvered and brokeOver the hill?Each at the other looked in amaze,And never a breathless word we spoke.Fast into rose and daffodilDeepened that splendor; athwart its blazeThat pierced like a sword the gulf of nightWe saw a form that was shaped of the light,And we veiled our faces in awe and dreadTo hearken the tidings the Bright One told—Oh! wonderful were the words he said—Of a Child in Bethlehem's manger old.

The stars were drowned in that orient glow;The sky was abloom like a meadow in spring;But each blossom there was a radiant faceAnd each flash of glory a shining wing;They harped of peace and great good will,And such was their music that well I knowThere can never again in my soul be spaceFor a sound of ill.

The light died out as the sunset diesIn the western skies;Swift went we to the Bethlehem khan,Many our questions laughed to scorn,But one, a gray and wrinkled man,With strange, deep eyes that searched the heart,Led us down to the child new-bornIn a dim-lighted cave apart.

There on the straw the mother layWan and white,But her look was so holy and rapt and mildThat it seemed to shed a marvellous light,Faint as the first rare gleam of day,Around the child.

It was as other children areSaving for something in the eyes,Starlike and clear and strangely wise—Then came a sudden thought to meOf a lamb I had found on the waste afar;Lost and sick with hunger and cold,I had brought it back in my arms to the foldFor tender ministry.

Dawn had flooded the east as a waveWhen we left the cave;All the world suddenly seemed to beYoung and pure and joyous again;The others lingered to talk with the men,Full of wonder and rapture still;But I hastened back to the fold on the hillTo tend the lamb that had need of me.