_O Star of Wonder,_ _Star of Night,_ _Star with royal beauty bright!_ _Eastward leading,_ _Home proceeding,_ _Show once more Thy perfect light!_ _TRIO_ _Where the guiding glory once shone_ _Dark we wander onward and on,_ _Watching, hoping,_ _Dimly groping,_ _Seeking the light that’s gone._ _CHORUS_ _O Star of Wonder,_ _Star of Night,_ _Star with royal beauty bright!_ _Eastward leading,_ _Home proceeding,_ _Show once more Thy perfect light!_ [Illustration: THE THREE WISE MEN] EIGHTH ACTION (“Which, O Lord, is Wisest?”) _STAGE A_ The THREE KINGS enter before the Tree, their Followers grouped on the right. As he comes, KING CASPAR lifts his voice in a carol, solo, in which BELSHASAR and MELCHIOR soon join with him. Each of them, in his singing, acts out the sung carol in his bearing and movement. [Sidenote: _Carol 5. Solo and Trio. The Bell, the Sword and the Laughter_] CASPAR _Lord of life! how pleasant ways_ _Are thy paths of danger,_ _Leading down from Herod’s place_ _By an ox’s manger:_ _Lo, there lay a little child_ _Rosy ’neath the rafter.—_ _Ahaha! how glad he smiled!_ _Lord, how blithe his laughter!_ MELCHIOR _Laughter! Nay, I heard none laugh._ _Whom thou heardest—say now!_ CASPAR _Him, the child, where mid the chaff_ _He lay on the hay-mow._ _Sure, Belshasar, thou didst bend_ _Nigh him and thou heardest._ BELSHASAR _Caspar, nay: I comprehend_ _Not one thing thou wordest._ CASPAR _Ohoho! Still, Lord, I hear_ _Music of that laughter._ MELCHIOR _Daft thou ever wert: I fear_ _Still thou growest dafter._ _Nothing heard I, by my soul_ _But a sword its clanging._ BELSHASAR _Nay, a bell, I heard it toll:_ _On a cross ’twas hanging._ MELCHIOR _Now, am I not Melchior?_ _By my crown its keeping!_ _’Twas a sword that dangled o’er_ _Where the babe lay sleeping._ BELSHASAR _Nay, a bell—a passing-bell:_ _Lonely was its ringing._ CASPAR _Ahaha! I heard full well_ _‘Merry Christmas!’ singing._ CASPAR, BELSHASAR AND MELCHIOR (Sing together) _Lord, how may we wise men tell_ _How to clothe our starkness?_ _Song and sword and passing-bell_ _Lure us through the darkness._ _Send us sign of hidden things—_ _Thou who naught despisest!_ _Lo, of us three crownèd kings,_ _Which, O Lord, is wisest?_ VOICES OF ELF AND GNOME (Echo in song, within) “_Which, O Lord, is wisest?_” (In songful laughter) _Óhoho! Aháha!_ CASPAR Lord, Lord, Thy sign! Harken, wise men, my brothers: Laughter, laughter He sends us for a sign! BELSHASAR Nay, voices of the desert places! MELCHIOR