Mockings of midnight! ELF AND GNOME (Enter, laughing lyricly) _Óhoho! Aháha!_ CASPAR Heigh! What is here? Elf!—Gnome! BELSHASAR Keep back! They are imps of evil. MELCHIOR Stay! Do not speak with them. Hush! (CASPAR pays no heed, but greets the FAIRIES, who return his greeting with blithe bows.) CASPAR Now, neighbors, God rest you merry! ELF Welcome, Wise Man! GNOME Welcome, Sir King! MELCHIOR (To BELSHASAR) He speaks with them. BELSHASAR (To MELCHIOR) Come. He is lost! (They draw away.) GNOME Where are you from—ye Kings? CASPAR From the East, returning home from Herod’s land. ELF What went you there for to do? CASPAR To worship a new-born Child. GNOME How did you find your way? CASPAR We followed a star. ELF AND GNOME (Nodding to each other) A star! CASPAR Yea, but our path now has lost it.— Why do ye laugh there so merry? ELF AND GNOME (Pointing) Look up! CASPAR The star! The star! Ho, Melchior, Belshasar, look up! His star—the star we have lost—is found: Behold, it shines on the tree! MELCHIOR I see no star. BELSHASAR ’Tis darkness all. CASPAR What! Can you see nothing shining yonder? MELCHIOR Nothing. Your eyes are bleary with night. BELSHASAR Nay, he’s grown old and merry and cracked. CASPAR Deaf to His laughter, blind to His star! God save you, Wise Men! Let me grow old And merry and cracked, And talk with His wild, silly creatures. (Enter WOLF, BEAR and LION.) BELSHASAR (To MELCHIOR) Come farther!—Wild beasts they draw near. (They move aside into shadow.) CASPAR Halloa, goodman Bear! Good even! BEAR (Forlornly) Ooff! Ooff! My honey hive’s empty. LION Look you! My bone is picked bare. WOLF I’ve never a bone left to pick, And I’m losing the fur on my tail. CASPAR Heigh, Master Wolf, Sir Lion! How come ye so down at heart? LION The Light-Child is gone on his way. WOLF When a fellow can’t sing, he feels hungry. CASPAR Nay, neighbors, the Light-Child is with us; He smiles from His twinkling star Yonder, yea laughs in His light And bids us make merry together For joy of His shining.—Hoho! Bring hither my music, good fellows! Bring hither my fiddles and cakes To make Him a feast night. (From among CASPAR’S FOLLOWERS, cakes and instruments are brought before him. To WOLF, BEAR and LION he gives each a cake; to ELF and GNOME a stringed instrument.)