Here a traveller shall go by, and the boys shall lay hold of his garments and say: 

BOYS. 
Come hither I and all reverence pay
Unto our monarch, crowned to-day! 
Then go rejoicing on your way,
  In all prosperity!

TRAVELLER. 
Hail to the King of Bethlehem,
Who weareth in his diadem
The yellow crocus for the gem
  Of his authority!

He passes by; and others come in, bearing on a litter a sick child.

BOYS. 
Set down the litter and draw near! 
The King of Bethlehem is here! 
What ails the child, who seems to fear
  That we shall do him harm?

THE BEARERS. 
He climbed up to the robin’s nest,
And out there darted, from his rest,
A serpent with a crimson crest,
  And stung him in the arm.

JESUS. 
Bring him to me, and let me feel
The wounded place; my touch can heal
The sting of serpents, and can steal
  The poison from the bite!

He touches the wound, and the boy begins to cry.

Cease to lament!  I can foresee
That thou hereafter known shalt be,
Among the men who follow me,
  As Simon the Canaanite!

EPILOGUE
  In the after part of the day
  Will be represented another play,
  Of the Passion of our Blessed Lord,
  Beginning directly after Nones! 
  At the close of which we shall accord,
  By way of benison and reward,
  The sight of a holy Martyr’s bones!

IV

THE ROAD TO HIRSCHAU

PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE, with their attendants on horseback.

ELSIE. 
Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant city,
     impatiently bearing
Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate,
     of doing and daring!

PRINCE HENRY. 
This life of ours is a wild aeolian harp of many
     a joyous strain,
But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail,
     as of souls in pain.

ELSIE. 
Faith alone can interpret life, and the heart
     that aches and bleeds with the stigma
Of pain, alone bears the likeness of Christ,
     and can comprehend its dark enigma.

PRINCE HENRY. 
Man is selfish, and seeketh pleasure with little care
     of what may betide,
Else why am I travelling here beside thee,
     a demon that rides by an angel’s side?

ELSIE. 
All the hedges are white with dust, and the great dog
     under the creaking wain
Hangs his head in the lazy heat, while onward
     the horses toil and strain.

PRINCE HENRY. 
Now they stop at the wayside inn, and the wagoner laughs
     with the landlord’s daughter,
While out of the dripping trough the horses
     distend their leathern sides with water.

ELSIE. 
All through life there are wayside inns,
     where man may refresh his soul with love;
Even the lowest may quench his thirst
     at rivulets fed by springs from above.