Who are these travellers come from afar,
riding beneath unfamiliar skies,
weary from journeying after a star,
dust of the desert storms blinding their eyes?
What is the burden their caravan brings
over the mountains and crossing the sand?
Riches of Orient worthy of kings,
spices and gold from a far distant land.
What can these mean to the child in a manger,
one who has chosen the poor for his part,
one who embraces the hungry and stranger,
taking the sick and despised to his heart?
What did they give with their gold and their incense,
coming as we do with joy to this place?
Did they receive, as they knelt in his presence,
the promise of blessing, the gift of his grace?
Jennifer Henderson [b. 1929]
