“We have seen his star in the east,
and are come to worship him.”
– The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 2
Unlike the shepherds,
the wise men didn't get a visit from angels.
They figured it out on their own.
You've got to love the wisards.
Remember John Milton of Paradise Lost?
Barely 21 years old, Milton stayed up all night
on Christmas Eve in 1629 to write
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity.
It was the first thing he ever wrote.
This is the fourth stanza of that poem:
“See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wisards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet.
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the angel quire,
From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.”