D’you think stars have a way Of coming out like, special, when they got summut to say? I’ve often wondered how it is they are: You never seem to get no nearer to a star,-- Walk a’ter ’em a mile they still seem just as far. 3RD SHEPHERD. ’Tis as God made ’em. Like as they were geese, Go a’ter ’em, and they turns tail and flees; Then you go back, and back they come at you! So as God made ’em’s what they got to do. 1ST SHEPHERD. Aye, I don’t doubt the stars lays facts to mind: There’s them as say men’s names be marked and signed,-- Writ in the roof up there, for proof that God’s behind. WATCHER. Ay-oh, ay-oh, ay-oh! 5TH SHEPHERD. You think a star knows what it’s all about, A-blazing for? 1ST SHEPHERD. I haven’t got a doubt He does! That star--now, don’t tell me no more You think he don’t know what he’s shining for! Look at him jerking and working, and a-winking and a-blinking;-- Well,--that’s him thinking. 3RD SHEPHERD. Well, if he thinks the things God sets him to, Like we poor men, he got enough to do! WATCHER. Ay-oh, ay-oh, ay-oh! 4TH SHEPHERD. There’s old blind Abe a-looking! Don’t he seem As if he saw it? 2ND SHEPHERD. Aye! he likes to dream He’s won his sight back, tho’ it’s been twelve year gone. Abe, what d’you think you’ve got your eye upon? ABEL. A good sight! aye, and a sight as you can’t see So well as I. The thought just come to me, While all of you sat talking by my side, Like to the word the prophet prophesied;-- And while you talked, the thought o’ it kep’ me dumb:-- Shiloh, thinks I,--will I see Shiloh come? And all at once these words were in my head,-- What he,--the man whose eyes were open--said Aforetime, ‘I shall see him;--but not now!’ Says he, ‘I shall behold him;--but not nigh: ‘Out of Jacob there shall come forth a Star, ‘And a Sceptre in Israel shall be raised high.’-- So he bare witness of things seen afar. And that being told so many years ago, Yet still to come, do surely seem to show How we be likelier to behold that Star Than he who only spoke o’ it from afar. And in that day, ’tis told, the dumb shall talk, The old shall leap, and the lame man shall walk, And the blind man recover back his sight! 3RD SHEPHERD. Well, well, it may be so! God will do right. 1ST SHEPHERD. May we be there to see when that day shows: What it can do for such as we--God knows! WATCHER. Ay-oh!... 1ST SHEPHERD. Why! who be yon fine gentleman in white Stepping across the sheepfolds to the right? 4TH SHEPHERD. How comes it that his face be lit so bright? 3RD SHEPHERD. The blood pricks in my thumbs; ’Tis like a ghost he comes! _Enter GABRIEL._ GABRIEL.