The frosted rooftops greyly lit, are ranged

Beneath benignant stars and naked moon,

While sleeping trees in shadowed maze extend

Their roughly-angled boughs aloft, toward

The opened deep of late December night.



Then peering through the mingled branches came

A liquid gleam of lucent blue, as if

A contemplative eye surveyed the scene

On which it gazed-- a planet, riding high,

Processing through mid-heaven this winter night.



My mind imagined Bethlehem, whose star

Once ruled a different sky in other time;

Revealed, beheld, pursued; ordained to point

Three kings of earth to where the Highest King

Had come into the world that Christmas night.