Yes, three: a poet, prince, and prefect came,
as pilgrims, from the antique, storied east.
Each one had been betrayed by worldly fame,
decades ago, nor cared, now, in the least.
Their travel was timed to a distant star
(about which skeptic scholars disagree):
that, and some scrolls of ancient prophecy
inspired them to this journey---long and far.
They sought no mere king, but the King of Kings:
The One who comes not to destroy, but brings
the joy and peace of life abundantly.
Stopped briefly to ask in Jerusalem,
they went to a small village, Bethlehem.
Those three: a poet, prince, and prefect: they
found Him, toddling, an adolescent's child,
and knelt to offer gifts, to praise and pray;
as, on them, the young girl and her Son smiled.
Starward
[jlc]
Author's Notes/Comments:
I have wanted to write a poem about the Three Wise Men, from Matthew 2, since Christmas of 1976. (At that time, I did not know what to say about them.) The poem presents what I believe, to the best of my knowledge, to be an original hypothesis: that the three pilgrims were the poet Vergil; Caesarion, Ptolemy XV, the last and deposed Pharaoh of Egypt, son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar; and Cornelius Gallus, former prefect of Egypt (and, only secondarily, a poet). Each of them had been, at some time and in some way, victimized, ostensibly to death, by Octavian, later known as Augustus; and yet, in two of the three cases (and possibly all of them) no body was produced as evidence of death. The irony that each of these, a victim of the whims of Augustus, should have survived those whims to make pilgrimage to visit Christ and His Mother, is obvious and, when well contemplated, convincing.
The poem also presents two assertions for which I have been criticized by certain brethren in my church: that the star was a clock rather than a guidance system, and that Mary was in early adolescence when she became pregnant with the Christ Child.
The Scripture references are Matthew 2:1-11; Revelation 19:16; Luke 9:56; John 10:10. The concept of Mary and Jesus smiling upon the visitors is so universal that I cannot imagine it is copyrighted, nor can be.
