You cross the threshold; and dim and small

Is the space that serves for the Shepherd's Fold;

The narrow aisle, the bare, white wall,

The pews, and the pulpit quaint and tall,

Whisper and say: "Alas! we are old."

Herbert's chapel at Bemerton

Hardly more spacious is than this;

But Poet and Pastor, blent in one,

Clothed with a splendor, as of the sun,

That lowly and holy edifice.

It is not the wall of stone without

That makes the building small or great

But the soul's light shining round about,

And the faith that overcometh doubt,

And the love that stronger is than hate.

Were I a pilgrim in search of peace,

Were I a pastor of Holy Church,

More than a Bishop's diocese

Should I prize this place of rest, and release

From farther longing and farther search.

Here would I stay, and let the world

With its distant thunder roar and roll;

Storms do not rend the sail that is furled;

Nor like a dead leaf, tossed and whirled

In an eddy of wind, is the anchored soul.

FOLK SONGS

THE SIFTING OF PETER

In St. Luke's Gospel we are told

How Peter in the days of old

Was sifted;

And now, though ages intervene,

Sin is the same, while time and scene

Are shifted.

Satan desires us, great and small,

As wheat to sift us, and we all

Are tempted;

Not one, however rich or great,

Is by his station or estate

Exempted.

No house so safely guarded is

But he, by some device of his,

Can enter;

No heart hath armor so complete

But he can pierce with arrows fleet

Its centre.

For all at last the cock will crow,

Who hear the warning voice, but go

Unheeding,

Till thrice and more they have denied

The Man of Sorrows, crucified

And bleeding.

One look of that pale suffering face

Will make us feel the deep disgrace

Of weakness;

We shall be sifted till the strength

Of self-conceit be changed at length

To meekness.

Wounds of the soul, though healed will ache;

The reddening scars remain, and make

Confession;

Lost innocence returns no more;

We are not what we were before

Transgression.

But noble souls, through dust and heat,

Rise from disaster and defeat

The stronger,

And conscious still of the divine

Within them, lie on earth supine

No longer.

MAIDEN AND WEATHERCOCK

MAIDEN

O weathercock on the village spire,

With your golden feathers all on fire,

Tell me, what can you see from your perch

Above there over the tower of the church?

WEATHERCOCK.

I can see the roofs and the streets below,

And the people moving to and fro,

And beyond, without either roof or street,

The great salt sea, and the fisherman's fleet.

I can see a ship come sailing in

Beyond the headlands and harbor of Lynn,

And a young man standing on the deck,

With a silken kerchief round his neck.

Now he is pressing it to his lips,

And now he is kissing his finger-tips,

And now he is lifting and waving his hand

And blowing the kisses toward the land.

MAIDEN.

Ah, that is the ship from over the sea,

That is bringing my lover back to me,

Bringing my lover so fond and true,

Who does not change with the wind like you.

WEATHERCOCK.

If I change with all the winds that blow,

It is only because they made me so,

And people would think it wondrous strange,

If I, a Weathercock, should not change.

O pretty Maiden, so fine and fair,

With your dreamy eyes and your golden hair,

When you and your lover meet to-day

You will thank me for looking some other way.

THE WINDMILL

Behold! a giant am I!

Aloft here in my tower,

With my granite jaws I devour

The maize, and the wheat, and the rye,

And grind them into flour.

I look down over the farms;

In the fields of grain I see

The harvest that is to be,

And I fling to the air my arms,

For I know it is all for me.

I hear the sound of flails

Far off, from the threshing-floors

In barns, with their open doors,

And the wind, the wind in my sails,

Louder and louder roars.

I stand here in my place,

With my foot on the rock below,

And whichever way it may blow

I meet it face to face,

As a brave man meets his foe.

And while we wrestle and strive

My master, the miller, stands

And feeds me with his hands;

For he knows who makes him thrive,

Who makes him lord of lands.

On Sundays I take my rest;

Church-going bells begin

Their low, melodious din;

I cross my arms on my breast,

And all is peace within.

THE TIDE RISES, THE TIDE FALLS

The tide rises, the tide falls,

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;

Along the sea-sands damp and brown

The traveller hastens toward the town,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

But the sea in the darkness calls and calls;

The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

Efface the footprints in the sands,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;

The day returns, but nevermore

Returns the traveller to the shore,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

SONNETS

MY CATHEDRAL

Like two cathedral towers these stately pines

Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones;

The arch beneath them is not built with stones,

Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines,

And carved this graceful arabesque of vines;

No organ but the wind here sighs and moans,

No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones.

No marble bishop on his tomb reclines.

Enter! the pavement, carpeted with leaves,

Gives back a softened echo to thy tread!

Listen! the choir is singing; all the birds,

In leafy galleries beneath the eaves,

Are singing! listen, ere the sound be fled,

And learn there may be worship with out words.

THE BURIAL OF THE POET

RICHARD HENRY DANA

In the old churchyard of his native town,

And in the ancestral tomb beside the wall,

We laid him in the sleep that comes to all,

And left him to his rest and his renown.

The snow was falling, as if Heaven dropped down

White flowers of Paradise to strew his pall;--

The dead around him seemed to wake, and call

His name, as worthy of so white a crown.

And now the moon is shining on the scene,

And the broad sheet of snow is written o'er

With shadows cruciform of leafless trees,

As once the winding-sheet of Saladin

With chapters of the Koran; but, ah! more

Mysterious and triumphant signs are these.

NIGHT

Into the darkness and the hush of night

Slowly the landscape sinks, and fades away,

And with it fade the phantoms of the day,

The ghosts of men and things, that haunt the light,

The crowd, the clamor, the pursuit, the flight,

The unprofitable splendor and display,

The agitations, and the cares that prey

Upon our hearts, all vanish out of sight.

The better life begins; the world no more

Molests us; all its records we erase

From the dull common-place book of our lives,

That like a palimpsest is written o'er

With trivial incidents of time and place,

And lo! the ideal, hidden beneath, revives.

L'ENVOI

THE POET AND HIS SONGS

As the birds come in the Spring,

We know not from where;

As the stars come at evening

From depths of the air;

As the rain comes from the cloud,

And the brook from the ground;

As suddenly, low or loud,

Out of silence a sound;

As the grape comes to the vine,

The fruit to the tree;

As the wind comes to the pine,

And the tide to the sea;

As come the white sails of ships

O'er the ocean's verge;

As comes the smile to the lips,

The foam to the surge;

So come to the Poet his songs,

All hitherward blown

From the misty realm, that belongs

To the vast unknown.

His, and not his, are the lays

He sings; and their fame

Is his, and not his; and the praise

And the pride of a name.

For voices pursue him by day,

And haunt him by night,

And he listens, and needs must obey,

When the Angel says: "Write!"

***********

IN THE HARBOR

BECALMED

Becalmed upon the sea of Thought,

Still unattained the land it sought,

My mind, with loosely-hanging sails,

Lies waiting the auspicious gales.

On either side, behind, before,

The ocean stretches like a floor,--

A level floor of amethyst,

Crowned by a golden dome of mist.

Blow, breath of inspiration, blow!

Shake and uplift this golden glow!

And fill the canvas of the mind

With wafts of thy celestial wind.

Blow, breath of song! until I feel

The straining sail, the lifting keel,

The life of the awakening sea,

Its motion and its mystery!

THE POET'S CALENDAR

JANUARY

Janus am I; oldest of potentates;

Forward I look, and backward, and below

I count, as god of avenues and gates,

The years that through my portals come and go.

I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow;

I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen;

My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,

My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men.

FEBRUARY

I am lustration, and the sea is mine.

I wash the sands and headlands with my tide;

My brow is crowned with branches of the pine;

Before my chariot-wheels the fishes glide.

By me all things unclean are purified,

By me the souls of men washed white again;

E'en the unlovely tombs of those who died

Without a dirge, I cleanse from every stain.

MARCH

I Martius am! Once first, and now the third!

To lead the Year was my appointed place;

A mortal dispossessed me by a word,

And set there Janus with the double face.

Hence I make war on all the human race;

I shake the cities with my hurricanes;

I flood the rivers and their banks efface,

And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains.

APRIL

I open wide the portals of the Spring

To welcome the procession of the flowers,

With their gay banners, and the birds that sing

Their song of songs from their aerial towers.

I soften with my sunshine and my showers

The heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glide

Into the hearts of men; and with the Hours

Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride.

MAY

Hark! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaim

My coming, and the swarming of the bees.

These are my heralds, and behold! my name

Is written in blossoms on the hawthorn-trees.

I tell the mariner when to sail the seas;

I waft o'er all the land from far away

The breath and bloom of the Hesperides,

My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May.

JUNE

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine

The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights

And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,

The foliage of the valleys and the heights.

Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;

The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;

I am the mother of all dear delights;

I am the fairest daughter of the year.

JULY

My emblem is the Lion, and I breathe

The breath of Libyan deserts o'er the land;

My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe,

And bent before me the pale harvests stand.

The lakes and rivers shrink at my command,

And there is thirst and fever in the air;

The sky is changed to brass, the earth to sand;

I am the Emperor whose name I bear.

AUGUST

The Emperor Octavian, called the August,

I being his favorite, bestowed his name

Upon me, and I hold it still in trust,

In memory of him and of his fame.

I am the Virgin, and my vestal flame

Burns less intensely than the Lion's rage;

Sheaves are my only garlands, and I claim

The golden Harvests as my heritage.

SEPTEMBER

I bear the Scales, where hang in equipoise

The night and day; and when unto my lips

I put my trumpet, with its stress and noise

Fly the white clouds like tattered sails of ships;

The tree-tops lash the air with sounding whips;

Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing their flight;

The hedges are all red with haws and hips,

The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of the night.

OCTOBER

My ornaments are fruits; my garments leaves,

Woven like cloth of gold, and crimson dyed;

I do not boast the harvesting of sheaves,

O'er orchards and o'er vineyards I preside.

Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride,

The dreamy air is full, and overflows

With tender memories of the summer-tide,

And mingled voices of the doves and crows.

NOVEMBER

The Centaur, Sagittarius, am I,

Born of Ixion's and the cloud's embrace;

With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly,

A steed Thessalian with a human face.

Sharp winds the arrows are with which I chase

The leaves, half dead already with affright;

I shroud myself in gloom; and to the race

Of mortals bring nor comfort nor delight.

DECEMBER

Riding upon the Goat, with snow-white hair,

I come, the last of all. This crown of mine

Is of the holly; in my hand I bear

The thyrsus, tipped with fragrant cones of pine.

I celebrate the birth of the Divine,

And the return of the Saturnian reign;--

My songs are carols sung at every shrine,

Proclaiming "Peace on earth, good will to men."

AUTUMN WITHIN

It is autumn; not without,

But within me is the cold.

Youth and spring are all about;

It is I that have grown old.

Birds are darting through the air,

Singing, building without rest;

Life is stirring everywhere,

Save within my lonely breast.

There is silence: the dead leaves

Fall and rustle and are still;

Beats no flail upon the sheaves

Comes no murmur from the mill.

THE FOUR LAKES OF MADISON

Four limpid lakes,--four Naiades

Or sylvan deities are these,

In flowing robes of azure dressed;

Four lovely handmaids, that uphold

Their shining mirrors, rimmed with gold,

To the fair city in the West.

By day the coursers of the sun

Drink of these waters as they run

Their swift diurnal round on high;

By night the constellations glow

Far down the hollow deeps below,

And glimmer in another sky.

Fair lakes, serene and full of light,

Fair town, arrayed in robes of white,

How visionary ye appear!

All like a floating landscape seems

In cloud-land or the land of dreams,

Bathed in a golden atmosphere!

VICTOR AND VANQUISHED

As one who long hath fled with panting breath

Before his foe, bleeding and near to fall,

I turn and set my back against the wall,

And look thee in the face, triumphant Death,

I call for aid, and no one answereth;

I am alone with thee, who conquerest all;

Yet me thy threatening form doth not appall,

For thou art but a phantom and a wraith.

Wounded and weak, sword broken at the hilt,

With armor shattered, and without a shield,

I stand unmoved; do with me what thou wilt;

I can resist no more, but will not yield.

This is no tournament where cowards tilt;

The vanquished here is victor of the field.

MOONLIGHT

As a pale phantom with a lamp

Ascends some ruin's haunted stair,

So glides the moon along the damp

Mysterious chambers of the air.

Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,

As if this phantom, full of pain,

Were by the crumbling walls concealed,

And at the windows seen again.

Until at last, serene and proud

In all the splendor of her light,

She walks the terraces of cloud,

Supreme as Empress of the Night.

I look, but recognize no more

Objects familiar to my view;

The very pathway to my door

Is an enchanted avenue.

All things are changed. One mass of shade,

The elm-trees drop their curtains down;

By palace, park, and colonnade

I walk as in a foreign town.

The very ground beneath my feet

Is clothed with a diviner air;

White marble paves the silent street

And glimmers in the empty square.

Illusion! Underneath there lies

The common life of every day;

Only the spirit glorifies

With its own tints the sober gray.

In vain we look, in vain uplift

Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind,

We see but what we have the gift

Of seeing; what we bring we find.

THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE

[A FRAGMENT.]

I

What is this I read in history,

Full of marvel, full of mystery,

Difficult to understand?

Is it fiction, is it truth?

Children in the flower of youth,

Heart in heart, and hand in hand,

Ignorant of what helps or harms,

Without armor, without arms,

Journeying to the Holy Land!

Who shall answer or divine?

Never since the world was made

Such a wonderful crusade

Started forth for Palestine.

Never while the world shall last

Will it reproduce the past;

Never will it see again

Such an army, such a band,

Over mountain, over main,

Journeying to the Holy Land.

Like a shower of blossoms blown

From the parent trees were they;

Like a flock of birds that fly

Through the unfrequented sky,

Holding nothing as their own,

Passed they into lands unknown,

Passed to suffer and to die.

O the simple, child-like trust!

O the faith that could believe

What the harnessed, iron-mailed

Knights of Christendom had failed,

By their prowess, to achieve,

They the children, could and must?

Little thought the Hermit, preaching

Holy Wars to knight and baron,

That the words dropped in his teaching,

His entreaty, his beseeching,

Would by children's hands be gleaned,

And the staff on which he leaned

Blossom like the rod of Aaron.

As a summer wind upheaves

The innumerable leaves

In the bosom of a wood,--

Not as separate leaves, but massed

All together by the blast,--

So for evil or for good

His resistless breath upheaved

All at once the many-leaved,

Many-thoughted multitude.

In the tumult of the air

Rock the boughs with all the nests

Cradled on their tossing crests;

By the fervor of his prayer

Troubled hearts were everywhere

Rocked and tossed in human breasts.

For a century, at least,

His prophetic voice had ceased;

But the air was heated still

By his lurid words and will,

As from fires in far-off woods,

In the autumn of the year,

An unwonted fever broods

In the sultry atmosphere.

II

In Cologne the bells were ringing,

In Cologne the nuns were singing

Hymns and canticles divine;

Loud the monks sang in their stalls,

And the thronging streets were loud

With the voices of the crowd;--

Underneath the city walls

Silent flowed the river Rhine.

From the gates, that summer day,

Clad in robes of hodden gray,

With the red cross on the breast,

Azure-eyed and golden-haired,

Forth the young crusaders fared;

While above the band devoted

Consecrated banners floated,

Fluttered many a flag and streamer,

And the cross o'er all the rest!

Singing lowly, meekly, slowly,

"Give us, give us back the holy

Sepulchre of the Redeemer!"

On the vast procession pressed,

Youths and maidens. . . .

III

Ah! what master hand shall paint

How they journeyed on their way,

How the days grew long and dreary,

How their little feet grew weary,

How their little hearts grew faint!

Ever swifter day by day

Flowed the homeward river; ever

More and more its whitening current

Broke and scattered into spray,

Till the calmly-flowing river

Changed into a mountain torrent,

Rushing from its glacier green

Down through chasm and black ravine.

Like a phoenix in its nest,

Burned the red sun in the West,

Sinking in an ashen cloud;

In the East, above the crest

Of the sea-like mountain chain,

Like a phoenix from its shroud,

Came the red sun back again.

Now around them, white with snow,

Closed the mountain peaks. Below,

Headlong from the precipice

Down into the dark abyss,

Plunged the cataract, white with foam;

And it said, or seemed to say:

"Oh return, while yet you may,

Foolish children, to your home,

There the Holy City is!"

But the dauntless leader said:

"Faint not, though your bleeding feet

O'er these slippery paths of sleet

Move but painfully and slowly;

Other feet than yours have bled;

Other tears than yours been shed

Courage! lose not heart or hope;

On the mountains' southern slope

Lies Jerusalem the Holy!"

As a white rose in its pride,

By the wind in summer-tide

Tossed and loosened from the branch,

Showers its petals o'er the ground,

From the distant mountain's side,

Scattering all its snows around,

With mysterious, muffled sound,

Loosened, fell the avalanche.

Voices, echoes far and near,

Roar of winds and waters blending,

Mists uprising, clouds impending,

Filled them with a sense of fear,

Formless, nameless, never ending.

. . . . . . . . . .

SUNDOWN

The summer sun is sinking low;

Only the tree-tops redden and glow:

Only the weathercock on the spire

Of the neighboring church is a flame of fire;

All is in shadow below.

O beautiful, awful summer day,

What hast thou given, what taken away?

Life and death, and love and hate,

Homes made happy or desolate,

Hearts made sad or gay!

On the road of life one mile-stone more!

In the book of life one leaf turned o'er!

Like a red seal is the setting sun

On the good and the evil men have done,--

Naught can to-day restore!

CHIMES

Sweet chimes! that in the loneliness of night

Salute the passing hour, and in the dark

And silent chambers of the household mark

The movements of the myriad orbs of light!

Through my closed eyelids, by the inner sight,

I see the constellations in the arc

Of their great circles moving on, and hark!

I almost hear them singing in their flight.

Better than sleep it is to lie awake

O'er-canopied by the vast starry dome

Of the immeasurable sky; to feel

The slumbering world sink under us, and make

Hardly an eddy,--a mere rush of foam

On the great sea beneath a sinking keel.

FOUR BY THE CLOCK.

"NAHANT, September 8, 1880,

Four o'clock in the morning."

Four by the clock! and yet not day;

But the great world rolls and wheels away,

With its cities on land, and its ships at sea,

Into the dawn that is to be!

Only the lamp in the anchored bark

Sends its glimmer across the dark,

And the heavy breathing of the sea

Is the only sound that comes to me.

AUF WIEDERSEHEN.

IN MEMORY OF J.T.F.

Until we meet again! That is the meaning

Of the familiar words, that men repeat

At parting in the street.

Ah yes, till then! but when death intervening

Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain

We wait for the Again!

The friends who leave us do not feel the sorrow

Of parting, as we feel it, who must stay

Lamenting day by day,

And knowing, when we wake upon the morrow,

We shall not find in its accustomed place

The one beloved face.

It were a double grief, if the departed,

Being released from earth, should still retain

A sense of earthly pain;

It were a double grief, if the true-hearted,

Who loved us here, should on the farther shore

Remember us no more.

Believing, in the midst of our afflictions,

That death is a beginning, not an end,

We cry to them, and send

Farewells, that better might be called predictions,

Being fore-shadowings of the future, thrown

Into the vast Unknown.

Faith overleaps the confines of our reason,

And if by faith, as in old times was said,

Women received their dead

Raised up to life, then only for a season

Our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain

Until we meet again!

ELEGIAC VERSE

I

Peradventure of old, some bard in Ionian Islands,

Walking alone by the sea, hearing the wash of the waves,

Learned the secret from them of the beautiful verse elegiac,

Breathing into his song motion and sound of the sea.

For as the wave of the sea, upheaving in long undulations,

Plunges loud on the sands, pauses, and turns, and retreats,

So the Hexameter, rising and singing, with cadence sonorous,

Falls; and in refluent rhythm back the Pentameter flows?

II

Not in his youth alone, but in age, may the heart of the poet

Bloom into song, as the gorse blossoms in autumn and spring.

III

Not in tenderness wanting, yet rough are the rhymes of our poet;

Though it be Jacob's voice, Esau's, alas! are the hands.

IV

Let us be grateful to writers for what is left in the inkstand;

When to leave off is an art only attained by the few.

V

How can the Three be One? you ask me; I answer by asking,

Hail and snow and rain, are they not three, and yet one?

VI

By the mirage uplifted the land floats vague in the ether,

Ships and the shadows of ships hang in the motionless air;

So by the art of the poet our common life is uplifted,

So, transfigured, the world floats in a luminous haze.

VII

Like a French poem is Life; being only perfect in structure

When with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are.

VIII

Down from the mountain descends the brooklet, rejoicing in

freedom;

Little it dreams of the mill hid in the valley below;

Glad with the joy of existence, the child goes singing and

laughing,

Little dreaming what toils lie in the future concealed.

IX

As the ink from our pen, so flow our thoughts and our feelings

When we begin to write, however sluggish before.

X

Like the Kingdom of Heaven, the Fountain of Youth is within us;

If we seek it elsewhere, old shall we grow in the search.

XI

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it;

Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.

XII

Wisely the Hebrews admit no Present tense in their language;

While we are speaking the word, it is is already the Past.

XIII

In the twilight of age all things seem strange and phantasmal,

As between daylight and dark ghost-like the landscape appears.

XIV

Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;

Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.

THE CITY AND THE SEA

The panting City cried to the Sea,

"I am faint with heat,--O breathe on me!"

And the Sea said, "Lo, I breathe! but my breath

To some will be life, to others death!"

As to Prometheus, bringing ease

In pain, come the Oceanides,

So to the City, hot with the flame

Of the pitiless sun, the east wind came.

It came from the heaving breast of the deep,

Silent as dreams are, and sudden as sleep.

Life-giving, death-giving, which will it be;

O breath of the merciful, merciless Sea?

MEMORIES

Oft I remember those whom I have known

In other days, to whom my heart was led

As by a magnet, and who are not dead,

But absent, and their memories overgrown

With other thoughts and troubles of my own,

As graves with grasses are, and at their head

The stone with moss and lichens so o'erspread,

Nothing is legible but the name alone.

And is it so with them? After long years,

Do they remember me in the same way,

And is the memory pleasant as to me?

I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?

Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,

And yet the root perennial may be.

HERMES TRISMEGISTUS

As Seleucus narrates, Hermes describes the principles that rank

as wholes in two myriads of books; or, as we are informed by

Manetho, he perfectly unfolded these principles in three myriads

six thousand five hundred and twenty-five volumes. . . .

. . . Our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom to

this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name of

Hermes.--IAMBLICUS.

Still through Egypt's desert places

Flows the lordly Nile,

From its banks the great stone faces

Gaze with patient smile.

Still the pyramids imperious

Pierce the cloudless skies,

And the Sphinx stares with mysterious,

Solemn, stony eyes.

But where are the old Egyptian

Demi-gods and kings?

Nothing left but an inscription

Graven on stones and rings.

Where are Helios and Hephæstus,

Gods of eldest eld?

Where is Hermes Trismegistus,

Who their secrets held?

Where are now the many hundred

Thousand books he wrote?

By the Thaumaturgists plundered,

Lost in lands remote;

In oblivion sunk forever,

As when o'er the land

Blows a storm-wind, in the river

Sinks the scattered sand.

Something unsubstantial, ghostly,

Seems this Theurgist,

In deep meditation mostly

Wrapped, as in a mist.

Vague, phantasmal, and unreal

To our thought he seems,

Walking in a world ideal,

In a land of dreams.

Was he one, or many, merging

Name and fame in one,

Like a stream, to which, converging

Many streamlets run?

Till, with gathered power proceeding,

Ampler sweep it takes,

Downward the sweet waters leading

From unnumbered lakes.

By the Nile I see him wandering,

Pausing now and then,

On the mystic union pondering

Between gods and men;

Half believing, wholly feeling,

With supreme delight,

How the gods, themselves concealing,

Lift men to their height.

Or in Thebes, the hundred-gated,

In the thoroughfare

Breathing, as if consecrated,

A diviner air;

And amid discordant noises,

In the jostling throng,

Hearing far, celestial voices

Of Olympian song.

Who shall call his dreams fallacious?

Who has searched or sought

All the unexplored and spacious

Universe of thought?

Who, in his own skill confiding,

Shall with rule and line

Mark the border-land dividing

Human and divine?

Trismegistus! three times greatest!

How thy name sublime

Has descended to this latest

Progeny of time!

Happy they whose written pages

Perish with their lives,

If amid the crumbling ages

Still their name survives!

Thine, O priest of Egypt, lately

Found I in the vast,

Weed-encumbered sombre, stately,

Grave-yard of the Past;

And a presence moved before me

On that gloomy shore,

As a waft of wind, that o'er me

Breathed, and was no more.

TO THE AVON

Flow on, sweet river! like his verse

Who lies beneath this sculptured hearse

Nor wait beside the churchyard wall

For him who cannot hear thy call.

Thy playmate once; I see him now

A boy with sunshine on his brow,

And hear in Stratford's quiet street

The patter of his little feet.

I see him by thy shallow edge

Wading knee-deep amid the sedge;

And lost in thought, as if thy stream

Were the swift river of a dream.

He wonders whitherward it flows;

And fain would follow where it goes,

To the wide world, that shall erelong

Be filled with his melodious song.

Flow on, fair stream! That dream is o'er;

He stands upon another shore;

A vaster river near him flows,

And still he follows where it goes.

PRESIDENT GARFIELD

"E venni dal martirio a questa pace."

These words the poet heard in Paradise,

Uttered by one who, bravely dying here,

In the true faith was living in that sphere

Where the celestial cross of sacrifice

Spread its protecting arms athwart the skies;

And set thereon, like jewels crystal clear,

The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear,

Flashed their effulgence on his dazzled eyes.

Ah me! how dark the discipline of pain,

Were not the suffering followed by the sense

Of infinite rest and infinite release!

This is our consolation; and again

A great soul cries to us in our suspense,

"I came from martyrdom unto this peace!"

MY BOOKS

Sadly as some old mediaeval knight

Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield,

The sword two-handed and the shining shield

Suspended in the hall, and full in sight,

While secret longings for the lost delight

Of tourney or adventure in the field

Came over him, and tears but half concealed

Trembled and fell upon his beard of white,

So I behold these books upon their shelf,

My ornaments and arms of other days;

Not wholly useless, though no longer used,

For they remind me of my other self,

Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways

In which I walked, now clouded and confused.

MAD RIVER

IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

TRAVELLER

Why dost thou wildly rush and roar,

Mad River, O Mad River?

Wilt thou not pause and cease to pour

Thy hurrying, headlong waters o'er

This rocky shelf forever?

What secret trouble stirs thy breast?

Why all this fret and flurry?

Dost thou not know that what is best

In this too restless world is rest

From over-work and worry?

THE RIVER

What wouldst thou in these mountains seek,

O stranger from the city?

Is it perhaps some foolish freak

Of thine, to put the words I speak

Into a plaintive ditty?

TRAVELLER

Yes; I would learn of thee thy song,

With all its flowing number;

And in a voice as fresh and strong

As thine is, sing it all day long,

And hear it in my slumbers.

THE RIVER

A brooklet nameless and unknown

Was I at first, resembling

A little child, that all alone

Comes venturing down the stairs of stone,

Irresolute and trembling.

Later, by wayward fancies led,

For the wide world I panted;

Out of the forest dark and dread

Across the open fields I fled,

Like one pursued and haunted.

I tossed my arms, I sang aloud,

My voice exultant blending

With thunder from the passing cloud,

The wind, the forest bent and bowed,

The rush of rain descending.

I heard the distant ocean call,

Imploring and entreating;

Drawn onward, o'er this rocky wall

I plunged, and the loud waterfall

Made answer to the greeting.

And now, beset with many ills,

A toilsome life I follow;

Compelled to carry from the hills

These logs to the impatient mills

Below there in the hollow.

Yet something ever cheers and charms

The rudeness of my labors;

Daily I water with these arms

The cattle of a hundred farms,

And have the birds for neighbors.

Men call me Mad, and well they may,

When, full of rage and trouble,

I burst my banks of sand and clay,

And sweep their wooden bridge away,

Like withered reeds or stubble.

Now go and write thy little rhyme,

As of thine own creating.

Thou seest the day is past its prime;

I can no longer waste my time;

The mills are tired of waiting.

POSSIBILITIES

Where are the Poets, unto whom belong

The Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sent

Straight to the mark, and not from bows half bent,

But with the utmost tension of the thong?

Where are the stately argosies of song,

Whose rushing keels made music as they went

Sailing in search of some new continent,

With all sail set, and steady winds and strong?

Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught

In schools, some graduate of the field or street,

Who shall become a master of the art,

An admiral sailing the high seas of thought,

Fearless and first and steering with his fleet

For lands not yet laid down in any chart.

DECORATION DAY

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest

On this Field of the Grounded Arms,

Where foes no more molest,

Nor sentry's shot alarms!

Ye have slept on the ground before,

And started to your feet

At the cannon's sudden roar,

Or the drum's redoubling beat.

But in this camp of Death

No sound your slumber breaks;

Here is no fevered breath,

No wound that bleeds and aches.

All is repose and peace,

Untrampled lies the sod;

The shouts of battle cease,

It is the Truce of God!

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!

The thoughts of men shall be

As sentinels to keep

Your rest from danger free.

Your silent tents of green

We deck with fragrant flowers;

Yours has the suffering been,

The memory shall be ours.

A FRAGMENT

Awake! arise! the hour is late!

Angels are knocking at thy door!

They are in haste and cannot wait,

And once departed come no more.

Awake! arise! the athlete's arm

Loses its strength by too much rest;

The fallow land, the untilled farm

Produces only weeds at best.

LOSS AND GAIN

When I compare

What I have lost with what I have gained,

What I have missed with what attained,

Little room do I find for pride.

I am aware

How many days have been idly spent;

How like an arrow the good intent

Has fallen short or been turned aside.

But who shall dare

To measure loss and gain in this wise?

Defeat may be victory in disguise;

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

INSCRIPTION ON THE SHANKLIN FOUNTAIN

O traveller, stay thy weary feet;

Drink of this fountain, pure and sweet;

It flows for rich and poor the same.

Then go thy way, remembering still

The wayside well beneath the hill,

The cup of water in His name.

THE BELLS OF SAN BLAS

What say the Bells of San Blas

To the ships that southward pass

From the harbor of Mazatlan?

To them it is nothing more

Than the sound of surf on the shore,--

Nothing more to master or man.

But to me, a dreamer of dreams,

To whom what is and what seems

Are often one and the same,--

The Bells of San Blas to me

Have a strange, wild melody,

And are something more than a name.

For bells are the voice of the church;

They have tones that touch and search

The hearts of young and old;

One sound to all, yet each

Lends a meaning to their speech,

And the meaning is manifold.

They are a voice of the Past,

Of an age that is fading fast,

Of a power austere and grand,

When the flag of Spain unfurled

Its folds o'er this western world,

And the Priest was lord of the land.

The chapel that once looked down

On the little seaport town

Has crumbled into the dust;

And on oaken beams below

The bells swing to and fro,

And are green with mould and rust.

"Is, then, the old faith dead,"

They say, "and in its stead

Is some new faith proclaimed,

That we are forced to remain

Naked to sun and rain,

Unsheltered and ashamed?

"Once, in our tower aloof,

We rang over wall and roof

Our warnings and our complaints;

And round about us there

The white doves filled the air,

Like the white souls of the saints.

"The saints! Ah, have they grown

Forgetful of their own?

Are they asleep, or dead,

That open to the sky

Their ruined Missions lie,

No longer tenanted?

"Oh, bring us back once more

The vanished days of yore,

When the world with faith was filled;

Bring back the fervid zeal,

The hearts of fire and steel,

The hands that believe and build.

"Then from our tower again

We will send over land and main

Our voices of command,

Like exiled kings who return

To their thrones, and the people learn

That the Priest is lord of the land!"

O Bells of San Blas in vain

Ye call back the Past again;

The Past is deaf to your prayer!

Out of the shadows of night

The world rolls into light;

It is daybreak everywhere.

*************

FRAGMENTS

October 22, 1838.

Neglected record of a mind neglected,

Unto what "lets and stops" art thou subjected!

The day with all its toils and occupations,

The night with its reflections and sensations,

The future, and the present, and the past,--

All I remember, feel, and hope at last,

All shapes of joy and sorrow, as they pass,--

Find but a dusty image in this glass.

August 18, 1847.

O faithful, indefatigable tides,

That evermore upon God's errands go,--

Now seaward bearing tidings of the land,--

Now landward bearing tidings of the sea,--

And filling every frith and estuary,

Each arm of the great sea, each little creek,

Each thread and filament of water-courses,

Full with your ministration of delight!

Under the rafters of this wooden bridge

I see you come and go; sometimes in haste

To reach your journey's end, which being done

With feet unrested ye return again

And recommence the never-ending task;

Patient, whatever burdens ye may bear,

And fretted only by the impeding rocks.

December 18, 1847.

Soft through the silent air descend the feathery snow-flakes;

White are the distant hills, white are the neighboring fields;

Only the marshes are brown, and the river rolling among them

Weareth the leaden hue seen in the eyes of the blind.

August 4, 1856.

A lovely morning, without the glare of the sun, the sea in great

commotion, chafing and foaming.

So from the bosom of darkness our days come roaring and gleaming,

Chafe and break into foam, sink into darkness again.

But on the shores of Time each leaves some trace of its passage,

Though the succeeding wave washes it out from the sand.

********

CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY

INTROITUS

The ANGEL bearing the PROPHET HABAKKUK through the air.

PROPHET.

Why dost thou bear me aloft,

O Angel of God, on thy pinions

O'er realms and dominions?

Softly I float as a cloud

In air, for thy right hand upholds me,

Thy garment enfolds me!

ANGEL.

Lo! as I passed on my way

In the harvest-field I beheld thee,

When no man compelled thee,

Bearing with thine own hands

This food to the famishing reapers,

A flock without keepers!

The fragrant sheaves of the wheat

Made the air above them sweet;

Sweeter and more divine

Was the scent of the scattered grain,

That the reaper's hand let fall

To be gathered again

By the hand of the gleaner!

Sweetest, divinest of all,

Was the humble deed of thine,

And the meekness of thy demeanor!

PROPHET.

Angel of Light,

I cannot gainsay thee,

I can but obey thee!

ANGEL.

Beautiful was it in the lord's sight,

To behold his Prophet

Feeding those that toil,

The tillers of the soil.

But why should the reapers eat of it

And not the Prophet of Zion

In the den of the lion?

The Prophet should feed the Prophet!

Therefore I thee have uplifted,

And bear thee aloft by the hair

Of thy head, like a cloud that is drifted

Through the vast unknown of the air!

Five days hath the Prophet been lying

In Babylon, in the den

Of the lions, death-defying,

Defying hunger and thirst;

But the worst

Is the mockery of men!

Alas! how full of fear

Is the fate of Prophet and Seer!

Forevermore, forevermore,

It shall be as it hath been heretofore;

The age in which they live

Will not forgive

The splendor of the everlasting light,

That makes their foreheads bright,

Nor the sublime

Fore-running of their time!

PROPHET.

Oh tell me, for thou knowest,

Wherefore and by what grace,

Have I, who am least and lowest,

Been chosen to this place,

To this exalted part?

ANGEL.

Because thou art

The Struggler; and from thy youth

Thy humble and patient life

Hath been a strife

And battle for the Truth;

Nor hast thou paused nor halted,

Nor ever in thy pride

Turned from the poor aside,

But with deed and word and pen

Hast served thy fellow-men;

Therefore art thou exalted!

PROPHET.

By thine arrow's light

Thou goest onward through the night,

And by the clear

Sheen of thy glittering spear!

When will our journey end?

ANGEL.

Lo, it is ended!

Yon silver gleam

Is the Euphrates' stream.

Let us descend

Into the city splendid,

Into the City of Gold!

PROPHET.

Behold!

As if the stars had fallen from their places

Into the firmament below,

The streets, the gardens, and the vacant spaces

With light are all aglow;

And hark!

As we draw near,

What sound is it I hear

Ascending through the dark?

ANGEL.

The tumultuous noise of the nations,

Their rejoicings and lamentations,

The pleadings of their prayer,

The groans of their despair,

The cry of their imprecations,

Their wrath, their love, their hate!

PROPHET.

Surely the world doth wait

The coming of its Redeemer!

ANGEL.

Awake from thy sleep, O dreamer?

The hour is near, though late;

Awake! write the vision sublime,

The vision, that is for a time,

Though it tarry, wait; it is nigh;

In the end it will speak and not lie.

PART ONE

THE DIVINE TRAGEDY

THE FIRST PASSOVER

I

VOX CLAMANTIS

JOHN THE BAPTIST.

Repent! repent! repent!

For the kingdom of God is at hand,

And all the land

Full of the knowledge of the Lord shall be

As the waters cover the sea,

And encircle the continent!

Repent! repent! repent!

For lo, the hour appointed,

The hour so long foretold

By the Prophets of old,

Of the coming of the Anointed,

The Messiah, the Paraclete,

The Desire of the Nations, is nigh!

He shall not strive nor cry,

Nor his voice be heard in the street;

Nor the bruised reed shall He break,

Nor quench the smoking flax;

And many of them that sleep

In the dust of earth shall awake,

On that great and terrible day,

And the wicked shall wail and weep,

And be blown like a smoke away,

And be melted away like wax.

Repent! repent! repent!

O Priest, and Pharisee,

Who hath warned you to flee

From the wrath that is to be?

From the coming anguish and ire?

The axe is laid at the root

Of the trees, and every tree

That bringeth not forth good fruit

Is hewn down and cast into the fire!

Ye Scribes, why come ye hither?

In the hour that is uncertain,

In the day of anguish and trouble,

He that stretcheth the heavens as a curtain

And spreadeth them out as a tent,

Shall blow upon you, and ye shall wither,

And the whirlwind shall take you away as stubble!

Repent! repent! repent!

PRIEST.

Who art thou, O man of prayer!

In raiment of camel's hair,

Begirt with leathern thong,

That here in the wilderness,

With a cry as of one in distress,

Preachest unto this throng?

Art thou the Christ?

JOHN.

Priest of Jerusalem,

In meekness and humbleness,

I deny not, I confess

I am not the Christ!

PRIEST.

What shall we say unto them

That sent us here? Reveal

Thy name, and naught conceal!

Art thou Elias?

JOHN.

No!

PRIEST.

Art thou that Prophet, then,

Of lamentation and woe,

Who, as a symbol and sign

Of impending wrath divine

Upon unbelieving men,

Shattered the vessel of clay

In the Valley of Slaughter?

JOHN.

Nay.

I am not he thou namest!

PRIEST.

Who art thou, and what is the word

That here thou proclaimest?

JOHN.

I am the voice of one

Crying in the wilderness alone:

Prepare ye the way of the Lord;

Make his paths straight

In the land that is desolate!

PRIEST.

If thou be not the Christ,

Nor yet Elias, nor he

That, in sign of the things to be,

Shattered the vessel of clay

In the Valley of Slaughter,

Then declare unto us, and say

By what authority now

Baptizest thou?

JOHN.

I indeed baptize you with water

Unto repentance; but He,

That cometh after me,

Is mightier than I and higher;

The latchet of whose shoes

I an not worthy to unloose;

He shall baptize you with fire,

And with the Holy Ghost!

Whose fan is in his hand;

He will purge to the uttermost

His floor, and garner his wheat,

But will burn the chaff in the brand

And fire of unquenchable heat!

Repent! repent! repent!

II

MOUNT QUARANTANIA

I

LUCIFER.

Not in the lightning's flash, nor in the thunder,

Not in the tempest, nor the cloudy storm,

Will I array my form;

But part invisible these boughs asunder,

And move and murmur as the wind upheaves

And whispers in the leaves.

Not as a terror and a desolation,

Not in my natural shape, inspiring fear

And dread, will I appear;

But in soft tones of sweetness and persuasion,

A sound as of the fall of mountain streams,

Or voices heard in dreams.

He sitteth there in silence, worn and wasted

With famine, and uplifts his hollow eyes

To the unpitying skies;

For forty days and nights he hath not tasted

Of food or drink, his parted lips are pale,

Surely his strength must fail.

Wherefore dost thou in penitential fasting

Waste and consume the beauty of thy youth.

Ah, if thou be in truth

The Son of the Unnamed, the Everlasting,

Command these stones beneath thy feet to be

Changed into bread for thee!

CHRISTUS.

'T is written! Man shall not live by bread alone,

But by each word that from God's mouth proceedeth!

II

LUCIFER.

Too weak, alas! too weak is the temptation

For one whose soul to nobler things aspires

Than sensual desires!

Ah, could I, by some sudden aberration,

Lend and delude to suicidal death

This Christ of Nazareth!

Unto the holy Temple on Moriah,

With its resplendent domes, and manifold

Bright pinnacles of gold,

Where they await thy coming, O Messiah!

Lo, I have brought thee! Let thy glory here

Be manifest and clear.

Reveal thyself by royal act and gesture

Descending with the bright triumphant host

Of all the hithermost

Archangels, and about thee as a vesture

The shining clouds, and all thy splendors show

Unto the world below!

Cast thyself down, it is the hour appointed;

And God hath given his angels charge and care

To keep thee and upbear

Upon their hands his only Son, the Anointed,

Lest he should dash his foot against a stone

And die, and be unknown.

CHRISTUS.

'T is written: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God!

III

LUCIFER.

I cannot thus delude him to perdition!

But one temptation still remains untried,

The trial of his pride,

The thirst of power, the fever of ambition!

Surely by these a humble peasant's son

At last may be undone!

Above the yawning chasms and deep abysses,

Across the headlong torrents, I have brought

Thy footsteps, swift as thought;

And from the highest of these precipices,

The Kingdoms of the world thine eyes behold.

Like a great map unrolled.

From far-off Lebanon, with cedars crested,

To where the waters of the Asphalt Lake

On its white pebbles break,

And the vast desert, silent, sand-invested,

These kingdoms all are mine, and thine shall be,

If thou wilt worship me!

CHRISTUS.

Get thee behind me, Satan! thou shalt worship

The Lord thy God; Him only shalt thou serve!

ANGELS MINISTRANT.

The sun goes down; the evening shadows lengthen,

The fever and the struggle of the day

Abate and pass away;

Thine Angels Miniatrant, we come to strengthen

And comfort thee, and crown thee with the palm,

The silence and the calm.

III

THE MARRIAGE IN CANA

THE MUSICIANS.

Rise up, my love, my fair one,

Rise up, and come away,

For lo! the winter is past,

The rain is over and gone,

The flowers appear on the earth,

The time of the singing of birds is come,

And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.

THE BRIDEGROOM.

Sweetly the minstrels sing the Song of Songs!

My heart runs forward with it, and I say:

Oh set me as a seal upon thine heart,

And set me as a seal upon thine arm;

For love is strong as life, and strong as death,

And cruel as the grave is jealousy!

THE MUSICIANS.

I sleep, but my heart awaketh;

'T is the voice of my beloved

Who knocketh, saying: Open to me,

My sister, my love, my dove,

For my head is filled with dew,

My locks with the drops of the night!

THE BRIDE.

Ah yes, I sleep, and yet my heart awaketh.

It is the voice of my beloved who knocks.

THE BRIDEGROOM.

O beautiful as Rebecca at the fountain,

O beautiful as Ruth among the sheaves!

O fairest among women! O undefiled!

Thou art all fair, my love, there's no spot in thee!

THE MUSICIANS.

My beloved is white and ruddy,

The chiefest among ten thousand

His locks are black as a raven,

His eyes are the eyes of doves,

Of doves by the rivers of water,

His lips are like unto lilies,

Dropping sweet-smelling myrrh.

ARCHITRICLINUS.

Who is that youth with the dark azure eyes,

And hair, in color like unto the wine,

Parted upon his forehead, and behind

Falling in flowing locks?

PARANYMPHUS.

The Nazarene

Who preacheth to the poor in field and village

The coming of God's Kingdom.

ARCHITRICLINUS.

How serene

His aspect is! manly yet womanly.

PARANYMPHUS.

Most beautiful among the sons of men!

Oft known to weep, but never known to laugh.

ARCHITRICLINUS.

And tell me, she with eyes of olive tint,

And skin as fair as wheat, and pale brown hair,

The woman at his side?

PARANYMPHUS.

His mother, Mary.

ARCHITRICLINUS.

And the tall figure standing close behind them,

Clad all in white, with lace and beard like ashes,

As if he were Elias, the White Witness,

Come from his cave on Carmel to foretell

The end of all things?

PARANYMPHUS.

That is Manahem

The Essenian, he who dwells among the palms

Near the Dead Sea.

ARCHITRICLINUS.

He who foretold to Herod

He should one day be King?

PARANYMPHUS.

The same.

ARCHITRICLINUS.

Then why

Doth he come here to sadden with his presence

Our marriage feast, belonging to a sect

Haters of women, and that taste not wine?

THE MUSICIANS.

My undefiled is but one,

The only one of her mother,

The choice of her that bare her;

The daughters saw her and blessed her;

The queens and the concubines praised her;

Saying, Lo! who is this

That looketh forth as the morning?

MANAHEM aside.

The Ruler of the Feast is gazing at me,

As if he asked, why is that old man here

Among the revellers? And thou, the Anointed!

Why art thou here? I see as in a vision

A figure clothed in purple, crowned with thorns;

I see a cross uplifted in the darkness,

And hear a cry of agony, that shall echo

Forever and forever through the world!

ARCHITRICLINUS.

Give us more wine. These goblets are all empty.

MARY to CHRISTUS.

They have no wine!

CHRISTUS.

O woman, what have I

To do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.

MARY to the servants.

Whatever he shall say to you, that do.

CHRISTUS.

Fill up these pots with water.

THE MUSICIANS.

Come, my beloved,

Let us go forth into the field,

Let us lodge in the villages;

Let us get up early to the vineyards,

Let us see if the vine flourish,

Whether the tender grape appear,

And the pomegranates bud forth.

CHRISTUS.

Draw out now

And bear unto the Ruler of the Feast.

MANAHEM aside.

O thou, brought up among the Essenians,

Nurtured in abstinence, taste not the wine!

It is the poison of dragons from the vineyards

Of Sodom, and the taste of death is in it!

ARCHITRICLINUS to the BRIDEGROOM.

All men set forth good wine at the beginning,

And when men have well drunk, that which is worse;

But thou hast kept the good wine until now.

MANAHEM aside.

The things that have been and shall be no more,

The things that are, and that hereafter shall he,

The things that might have been, and yet were not,

The fading twilight of great joys departed,

The daybreak of great truths as yet unrisen,

The intuition and the expectation

Of something, which, when come, is not the same,

But only like its forecast in men's dreams,

The longing, the delay, and the delight,

Sweeter for the delay; youth, hope, love, death,

And disappointment which is also death,

All these make up the sum of human life;

A dream within a dream, a wind at night

Howling across the desert in despair,

Seeking for something lost it cannot find.

Fate or foreseeing, or whatever name

Men call it, matters not; what is to be

Hath been fore-written in the thought divine

From the beginning. None can hide from it,

But it will find him out; nor run from it,

But it o'ertaketh him! The Lord hath said it.

THE BRIDEGROOM to the BRIDE, on the balcony.

When Abraham went with Sarah into Egypt,

The land was all illumined with her beauty;

But thou dost make the very night itself

Brighter than day! Behold, in glad procession,

Crowding the threshold of the sky above us,

The stars come forth to meet thee with their lamps;

And the soft winds, the ambassadors of flowers,

From neighboring gardens and from fields unseen,

Come laden with odors unto thee, my Queen!

THE MUSICIANS.

Awake, O north-wind,

And come, thou wind of the South.

Blow, blow upon my garden,

That the spices thereof may flow out.

IV

IN THE CORNFIELDS

PHILIP.

Onward through leagues of sun-illumined corn,

As if through parted seas, the pathway runs,

And crowned with sunshine as the Prince of Peace

Walks the beloved Master, leading us,

As Moses led our fathers in old times

Out of the land of bondage! We have found

Him of whom Moses and the Prophets wrote,

Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph.

NATHANAEL.

Can any good come out of Nazareth?

Can this be the Messiah?

PHILIP.

Come and see.

NATHANAEL.

The summer sun grows hot: I am anhungered.

How cheerily the Sabbath-breaking quail

Pipes in the corn, and bids us to his Feast

Of Wheat Sheaves! How the bearded, ripening ears

Toss in the roofless temple of the air;

As if the unseen hand of some High-Priest

Waved them before Mount Tabor as an altar!

It were no harm, if we should pluck and eat.

PHILIP.

How wonderful it is to walk abroad

With the Good Master! Since the miracle

He wrought at Cana, at the marriage feast,

His fame hath gone abroad through all the land,

And when we come to Nazareth, thou shalt see

How his own people will receive their Prophet,

And hail him as Messiah! See, he turns

And looks at thee.

CHRISTUS.

Behold an Israelite

In whom there is no guile.

NATHANAEL.

Whence knowest thou me?

CHRISTUS.

Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast

Under the fig-tree, I beheld thee.

NATHANAEL.

Rabbi!

Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King

Of Israel!

CHRISTUS.

Because I said I saw thee

Under the fig-tree, before Philip called thee,

Believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things.

Hereafter thou shalt see the heavens unclosed,

The angels of God ascending and descending

Upon the Son of Man!

PHAIRISEES, passing.

Hail, Rabbi!

CHRISTUS.

Hail!

PHARISEES.

Behold how thy disciples do a thing

Which is not lawful on the Sabbath-day,

And thou forbiddest them not!

CHRISTUS.

Have ye not read

What David did when he anhungered was,

And all they that were with him? How he entered

Into the house of God, and ate the shew-bread,

Which was not lawful, saving for the priests?

Have ye not read, how on the Sabbath-days

The priests profane the Sabbath in the Temple,

And yet are blameless? But I say to you,

One in this place is greater than the Temple!

And had ye known the meaning of the words,

I will have mercy and not sacrifice,

The guiltless ye would not condemn. The Sabbath

Was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

Passes on with the disciples.

PHARISEES.

This is, alas! some poor demoniac

Wandering about the fields, and uttering

His unintelligible blasphemies

Among the common people, who receive

As prophecies the words they comprehend not!

Deluded folk! The incomprehensible

Alone excites their wonder. There is none

So visionary, or so void of sense,

But he will find a crowd to follow him!

V

NAZARETH

CHRISTUS, reading in the Synagogue.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.

He hath anointed me to preach good tidings

Unto the poor; to heal the broken-hearted;

To comfort those that mourn, and to throw open

The prison doors of captives, and proclaim

The Year Acceptable of the Lord, our God!

He closes the book and sits down.

A PHARISEE.

Who is this youth? He hath taken the Teacher's seat!

Will he instruct the Elders?

A PRIEST.

Fifty years

Have I been Priest here in the Synagogue,

And never have I seen so young a man

Sit in the Teacher's seat!

CHRISTUS.

Behold, to-day

This scripture is fulfilled. One is appointed

And hath been sent to them that mourn in Zion,

To give them beauty for ashes, and the oil

Of joy for mourning! They shall build again

The old waste-places; and again raise up

The former desolations, and repair

The cities that are wasted! As a bridegroom

Decketh himself with ornaments; as a bride

Adorneth herself with jewels, so the Lord

Hath clothed me with the robe of righteousness!

A PRIEST.

He speaks the Prophet's words; but with an air

As if himself had been foreshadowed in them!

CHRISTUS.

For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace,

And for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest

Until its righteousness be as a brightness,

And its salvation as a lamp that burneth!

Thou shalt be called no longer the Forsaken,

Nor any more thy land the Desolate.

The Lord hath sworn, by his right hand hath sworn,

And by his arm of strength: I will no more

Give to thine enemies thy corn as meat;

The sons of strangers shall not drink thy wine.

Go through, go through the gates! Prepare a way

Unto the people! Gather out the stones!

Lift up a standard for the people!

A PRIEST.

Ah!

These are seditious words!

CHRISTUS.

And they shall call them

The holy people; the redeemed of God!

And thou, Jerusalem, shalt be called Sought out,

A city not forsaken!

A PHARISEE.

Is not this

The carpenter Joseph's son? Is not his mother

Called Mary? and his brethren and his sisters

Are they not with us? Doth he make himself

To be a Prophet?

CHRISTUS.

No man is a Prophet

In his own country, and among his kin.

In his own house no Prophet is accepted.

I say to you, in the land of Israel

Were many widows in Elijah's day,

When for three years and more the heavens were shut,

And a great famine was throughout the land;

But unto no one was Elijah sent

Save to Sarepta, to a city of Sidon,

And to a woman there that was a widow.

And many lepers were then in the land

Of Israel, in the time of Eliseus

The Prophet, and yet none of them was cleansed,

Save Naaman the Syrian!

A PRIEST.

Say no more!

Thou comest here into our Synagogue

And speakest to the Elders and the Priests,

As if the very mantle of Elijah

Had fallen upon thee! Are thou not ashamed?

A PHARISEE.

We want no Prophets here! Let him be driven

From Synagogue and city! Let him go

And prophesy to the Samaritans!

AN ELDER.

The world is changed. We Elders are as nothing!

We are but yesterdays, that have no part

Or portion in to-day! Dry leaves that rustle,

That make a little sound, and then are dust!

A PHARISEE.

A carpenter's apprentice! a mechanic,

Whom we have seen at work here in the town

Day after day; a stripling without learning,

Shall he pretend to unfold the Word of God

To men grown old in study of the Law?

CHRISTUS is thrust out.

VI

THE SEA OF GALILEE.

PETER and ANDREW mending their nets.

PETER.

Never was such a marvellous draught of fishes

Heard of in Galilee! The market-places

Both of Bethsaida and Capernaum

Are full of them! Yet we had toiled all night

And taken nothing, when the Master said:

Launch out into the deep, and cast your nets;

And doing this, we caught such multitudes,

Our nets like spiders' webs were snapped asunder,

And with the draught we filled two ships so full

That they began to sink. Then I knelt down

Amazed, and said: O Lord, depart from me,

I am a sinful man. And he made answer:

Simon, fear not; henceforth thou shalt catch men!

What was the meaning of those words?

ANDREW.

I know not.

But here is Philip, come from Nazareth.

He hath been with the Master. Tell us, Philip,

What tidings dost thou bring?

PHILIP.

Most wonderful!

As we drew near to Nain, out of the gate

Upon a bier was carried the dead body

Of a young man, his mother's only son,

And she a widow, who with lamentation

Bewailed her loss, and the much people with her;

And when the Master saw her he was filled

With pity; and he said to her: Weep not

And came and touched the bier, and they that bare it

Stood still; and then he said: Young man, arise!

And he that had been dead sat up, and soon

Began to speak; and he delivered him

Unto his mother. And there came a fear

On all the people, and they glorified

The Lord, and said, rejoicing: A great Prophet

Is risen up among us! and the Lord

Hath visited his people!

PETER.

A great Prophet?

Ay, greater than a Prophet: greater even

Than John the Baptist!

PHILIP.

Yet the Nazarenes

Rejected him.

PETER.

The Nazarenes are dogs!

As natural brute beasts, they growl at things

They do not understand; and they shall perish,

Utterly perish in their own corruption.

The Nazarenes are dogs!

PHILIP.

They drave him forth

Out of their Synagogue, out of their city,

And would have cast him down a precipice,

But, passing through the midst of them, he vanished

Out of their hands.

PETER.

Wells are they without water,

Clouds carried with a tempest, unto whom

The mist of darkness is reserved forever.

PHILIP.

Behold, he cometh. There is one man with him

I am amazed to see!

ANDREW.

What man is that?

PHILIP.

Judas Iscariot; he that cometh last,

Girt with a leathern apron. No one knoweth

His history; but the rumor of him is

He had an unclean spirit in his youth.

It hath not left him yet.

CHRISTUS, passing.

Come unto me,

All ye that labor and are heavy laden,

And I will give you rest! Come unto me,

And take my yoke upon you and learn of me,

For I am meek, and I am lowly in heart,

And ye shall all find rest unto your souls!

PHILIP.

Oh, there is something in that voice that reaches

The innermost recesses of my spirit!

I feel that it might say unto the blind:

Receive your sight! and straightway they would see!

I feel that it might say unto the dead,

Arise! and they would hear it and obey!

Behold, he beckons to us!

CHRISTUS to PETER and ANDREW.

Follow me!

PETER.

Master, I will leave all and follow thee.

VII

THE DEMONIAC OF GADARA

A GADARENE.

He hath escaped, hath plucked his chains asunder,

And broken his fetters; always night and day

Is in the mountains here, and in the tombs,

Crying aloud, and cutting himself with stones,

Exceeding fierce, so that no man can tame him!

THE DEMONIAC from above, unseen.

O Aschmedai! O Aschmedai, have pity!

A GADARENE.

Listen! It is his voice! Go warn the people

Just landing from the lake!

THE DEMONIAC.

O Aschmedai!

Thou angel of the bottomless pit, have pity!

It was enough to hurl King Solomon,

On whom be peace! two hundred leagues away

Into the country, and to make him scullion

In the kitchen of the King of Maschkemen!

Why dost thou hurl me here among these rocks,

And cut me with these stones?

A GADARENE.

He raves and mutters

He knows not what.

THE DEMONIAC, appearing from a tomb among the rocks.

The wild cock Tarnegal

Singeth to me, and bids me to the banquet,

Where all the Jews shall come; for they have slain

Behemoth the great ox, who daily cropped

A thousand hills for food, and at a draught

Drank up the river Jordan, and have slain

The huge Leviathan, and stretched his skin

Upon the high walls of Jerusalem,

And made them shine from one end of the world

Unto the other; and the fowl Barjuchne,

Whose outspread wings eclipse the sun, and make

Midnight at noon o'er all the continents!

And we shall drink the wine of Paradise

From Adam's cellars.

A GADARENE.

O thou unclean spirit!

THE DEMONIAC, hurling down a stone.

This is the wonderful Barjuchne's egg,

That fell out of her nest, and broke to pieces

And swept away three hundred cedar-trees,

And threescore villages!--Rabbi Eliezer,

How thou didst sin there in that seaport town

When thou hadst carried safe thy chest of silver

Over the seven rivers for her sake!

I too have sinned beyond the reach of pardon.

Ye hills and mountains, pray for mercy on me!

Ye stars and planets, pray for mercy on me!

Ye sun and moon, oh pray for mercy on me!

CHRISTUS and his disciples pass.

A GADARENE.

There is a man here of Decapolis,

Who hath an unclean spirit; so that none

Can pass this way. He lives among the tombs

Up there upon the cliffs, and hurls down stones

On those who pass beneath.

CHRISTUS.

Come out of him,

Thou unclean spirit!

THE DEMONIAC.

What have I to do

With thee, thou Son of God? Do not torment us.

CHRISTUS.

What is thy name?

THE DEMONIAC.

Legion; for we are many.

Cain, the first murderer; and the King Belshazzar,

And Evil Merodach of Babylon,

And Admatha, the death-cloud, prince of Persia

And Aschmedai the angel of the pit,

And many other devils. We are Legion.

Send us not forth beyond Decapolis;

Command us not to go into the deep!

There is a herd of swine here in the pastures,

Let us go into them.

CHRISTUS.

Come out of him,

Thou unclean spirit!

A GADARENE.

See how stupefied,

How motionless he stands! He cries no more;

He seems bewildered and in silence stares

As one who, walking in his sleep, awakes

And knows not where he is, and looks about him,

And at his nakedness, and is ashamed.

THE DEMONIAC.

Why am I here alone among the tombs?

What have they done to me, that I am naked?

Ah, woe is me!

CHRISTUS.

Go home unto thy friends

And tell them how great things the Lord hath done

For thee, and how He had compassion on thee!

A SWINEHERD, running.

The herds! the herd! O most unlucky day!

They were all feeding quiet in the sun,

When suddenly they started, and grew savage

As the wild boars of Tabor, and together

Rushed down a precipice into the sea!

They are all drowned!

PETER.

Thus righteously are punished

The apostate Jews, that eat the flesh of swine,

And broth of such abominable things!

GREEKS OF GADARA.

We sacrifice a sow unto Demeter

At the beginning of harvest and another

To Dionysus at the vintage-time.

Therefore we prize our herds of swine, and count them

Not as unclean, but as things consecrate

To the immortal gods. O great magician,

Depart out of our coasts; let us alone,

We are afraid of thee.

PETER.

Let us depart;

For they that sanctify and purify

Themselves in gardens, eating flesh of swine.

And the abomination, and the mouse,

Shall be consumed together, saith the Lord!

VIII

TALITHA CUMI

JAIRUS at the feet of CHRISTUS.

O Master! I entreat thee! I implore thee!

My daughter lieth at the point of death;

I pray thee come and lay thy hands upon her,

And she shall live!

CHRISTUS.

Who was it touched my garments?

SIMON PETER.

Thou seest the multitude that throng and press thee,

And sayest thou: Who touched me? 'T was not I.

CHRISTUS.

Some one hath touched my garments; I perceive

That virtue is gone out of me.

A WOMAN.

O Master!

Forgive me! For I said within myself,

If I so much as touch his garment's hem,

I shall be whole.

CHRISTUS.

Be of good comfort, daughter!

Thy faith hath made thee whole. Depart in peace.

A MESSENGER from the house.

Why troublest thou the Master? Hearest thou not

The flute players, and the voices of the women

Singing their lamentation? She is dead!

THE MINSTRELS AND MOURNERS.

We have girded ourselves with sackcloth!

We have covered our heads with ashes!

For our young men die, and our maidens

Swoon in the streets of the city;

And into their mother's bosom

They pour out their souls like water!

CHRISTUS, going in.

Give place. Why make ye this ado, and weep?

She is not dead, but sleepeth.

THE MOTHER, from within.

Cruel Death!

To take away front me this tender blossom!

To take away my dove, my lamb, my darling!

THE MINSTRELS AND MOURNERS.

He hath led me and brought into darkness,

Like the dead of old in dark places!

He hath bent his bow, and hath set me

Apart as a mark for his arrow!

He hath covered himself with a cloud,

That our prayer should not pass through and reach him!

THE CROWD.

He stands beside her bed! He takes her hand!

Listen, he speaks to her!

CHRISTUS, within.

Maiden, arise!

THE CROWD.

See, she obeys his voice! She stirs! She lives!

Her mother holds her folded in her arms!

O miracle of miracles! O marvel!

IX

THE TOWER OF MAGDALA

MARY MAGDALENE.

Companionless, unsatisfied, forlorn,

I sit here in this lonely tower, and look

Upon the lake below me, and the hills

That swoon with heat, and see as in a vision

All my past life unroll itself before me.

The princes and the merchants come to me,

Merchants of Tyre and Princes of Damascus.

And pass, and disappear, and are no more;

But leave behind their merchandise and jewels,

Their perfumes, and their gold, and their disgust.

I loathe them, and the very memory of them

Is unto me as thought of food to one

Cloyed with the luscious figs of Dalmanutha!

What if hereafter, in the long hereafter

Of endless joy or pain, or joy in pain,

It were my punishment to be with them

Grown hideous and decrepit in their sins,

And hear them say: Thou that hast brought us here,

Be unto us as thou hast been of old!

I look upon this raiment that I wear,

These silks, and these embroideries, and they seem

Only as cerements wrapped about my limbs!

I look upon these rings thick set with pearls,

And emerald and amethyst and jasper,

And they are burning coals upon my flesh!

This serpent on my wrist becomes alive!

Away, thou viper! and away, ye garlands,

Whose odors bring the swift remembrance back

Of the unhallowed revels in these chambers!

But yesterday,--and yet it seems to me

Something remote, like a pathetic song

Sung long ago by minstrels in the street,--

But yesterday, as from this tower I gazed,

Over the olive and the walnut trees

Upon the lake and the white ships, and wondered

Whither and whence they steered, and who was in them,

A fisher's boat drew near the landing-place

Under the oleanders, and the people

Came up from it, and passed beneath the tower,

Close under me. In front of them, as leader,

Walked one of royal aspect, clothed in white,

Who lifted up his eyes, and looked at me,

And all at once the air seemed filled and living

With a mysterious power, that streamed from him,

And overflowed me with an atmosphere

Of light and love. As one entranced I stood,

And when I woke again, lo! he was gone;

So that I said: Perhaps it is a dream.

But from that very hour the seven demons

That had their habitation in this body

Which men call beautiful, departed from me!

This morning, when the first gleam of the dawn

Made Lebanon a glory in the air,

And all below was darkness, I beheld

An angel, or a spirit glorified,

With wind-tossed garments walking on the lake.

The face I could not see, but I distinguished

The attitude and gesture, and I knew

'T was he that healed me. And the gusty wind

Brought to mine ears a voice, which seemed to say:

Be of good cheer! 'T is I! Be not afraid!

And from the darkness, scarcely heard, the answer:

If it be thou, bid me come unto thee

Upon the water! And the voice said: Come!

And then I heard a cry of fear: Lord, save me!

As of a drowning man. And then the voice:

Why didst thou doubt, O thou of little faith!

At this all vanished, and the wind was hushed,

And the great sun came up above the hills,

And the swift-flying vapors hid themselves

In caverns among the rocks! Oh, I must find him

And follow him, and be with him forever!

Thou box of alabaster, in whose walls

The souls of flowers lie pent, the precious balm

And spikenard of Arabian farms, the spirits

Of aromatic herbs, ethereal natures

Nursed by the sun and dew, not all unworthy

To bathe his consecrated feet, whose step

Makes every threshold holy that he crosses;

Let us go forth upon our pilgrimage,

Thou and I only! Let us search for him

Until we find him, and pour out our souls

Before his feet, till all that's left of us

Shall be the broken caskets that once held us!

X

THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE

A GUEST at table.

Are ye deceived? Have any of the Rulers

Believed on him? or do they know indeed

This man to be the very Christ? Howbeit

We know whence this man is, but when the Christ

Shall come, none knoweth whence he is.

CHRISTUS.

Whereunto shall I liken, then, the men

Of this generation? and what are they like?

They are like children sitting in the markets,

And calling unto one another, saying:

We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced

We have mourned unto you, and ye have not wept!

This say I unto you, for John the Baptist

Came neither eating bread nor drinking wine

Ye say he hath a devil. The Son of Man

Eating and drinking cometh, and ye say:

Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber;

Behold a friend of publicans and sinners!

A GUEST aside to SIMON.

Who is that woman yonder, gliding in

So silently behind him?

SIMON.

It is Mary,

Who dwelleth in the Tower of Magdala.

THE GUEST.

See, how she kneels there weeping, and her tears

Fall on his feet; and her long, golden hair

Waves to and fro and wipes them dry again.

And now she kisses them, and from a box

Of alabaster is anointing them

With precious ointment, filling all the house

With its sweet odor!

SIMON, aside,

Oh, this man, forsooth,

Were he indeed a Prophet, would have known

Who and what manner of woman this may be

That toucheth him! would know she is a sinner!

CHRISTUS.

Simon, somewhat have I to say to thee.

SIMON.

Master, say on.

CHRISTUS.

A certain creditor

Had once two debtors; and the one of them

Owed him five hundred pence; the other, fifty.

They having naught to pay withal, he frankly

Forgave them both. Now tell me which of them

Will love him most?

SIMON.

He, I suppose to whom

He most forgave.

CHRISTUS.

Yea, thou hast rightly judged.

Seest thou this woman? When thine house I entered,

Thou gavest me no water for my feet,

But she hath washed them with her tears, and wiped them

With her own hair. Thou gavest me no kiss;

This woman hath not ceased, since I came in,

To kiss my feet. My head with oil didst thou

Anoint not; but this woman hath anointed

My feet with ointment. Hence I say to thee,

Her sins, which have been many, are forgiven,

For she loved much.

THE GUESTS.

Oh, who, then, is this man

That pardoneth also sins without atonement?

CHRISTUS.

Woman, thy faith hath saved thee! Go in peace!

THE SECOND PASSOVER.

I

BEFORE THE GATES OF MACHAERUS

MANAHEM.

Welcome, O wilderness, and welcome, night

And solitude, and ye swift-flying stars

That drift with golden sands the barren heavens,

Welcome once more! The Angels of the Wind

Hasten across the desert to receive me;

And sweeter than men's voices are to me

The voices of these solitudes; the sound

Of unseen rivulets, and the far-off cry

Of bitterns in the reeds of water-pools.

And lo! above me, like the Prophet's arrow

Shot from the eastern window, high in air

The clamorous cranes go singing through the night.

O ye mysterious pilgrims of the air,

Would I had wings that I might follow you!

I look forth from these mountains, and behold

The omnipotent and omnipresent night,

Mysterious as the future and the fate

That hangs o'er all men's lives! I see beneath me

The desert stretching to the Dead Sea shore,

And westward, faint and far away, the glimmer

Of torches on Mount Olivet, announcing

The rising of the Moon of Passover.

Like a great cross it seems, on which suspended,

With head bowed down in agony, I see

A human figure! Hide, O merciful heaven,

The awful apparition from my sight!

And thou, Machaerus, lifting high and black

Thy dreadful walls against the rising moon,

Haunted by demons and by apparitions,

Lilith, and Jezerhara, and Bedargon,

How grim thou showest in the uncertain light,

A palace and a prison, where King Herod

Feasts with Herodias, while the Baptist John

Fasts, and consumes his unavailing life!

And in thy court-yard grows the untithed rue,

Huge as the olives of Gethsemane,

And ancient as the terebinth of Hebron,

Coeval with the world. Would that its leaves

Medicinal could purge thee of the demons

That now possess thee, and the cunning fox

That burrows in thy walls, contriving mischief!

Music is heard from within.

Angels of God! Sandalphon, thou that weavest

The prayers of men into immortal garlands,

And thou, Metatron, who dost gather up

Their songs, and bear them to the gates of heaven,

Now gather up together in your hands

The prayers that fill this prison, and the songs

That echo from the ceiling of this palace,

And lay them side by side before God's feet!

He enters the castle.

II

HEROD'S BANQUET-HALL

MANAHEM.

Thou hast sent for me, O King, and I am here.

HEROD.

Who art thou?

MANAHEM.

Manahem, the Essenian.

HEROD.

I recognize thy features, but what mean

These torn and faded garments? On thy road

Have demons crowded thee, and rubbed against thee,

And given thee weary knees? A cup of wine!

MANAHEM.

The Essenians drink no wine.

HEROD.

What wilt thou, then?

MANAHEM.

Nothing.

HEROD.

Not even a cup of water?

MANAHEM.

Nothing.

Why hast thou sent for me?

HEROD.

Dost thou remember

One day when I, a schoolboy in the streets

Of the great city, met thee on my way

To school, and thou didst say to me: Hereafter

Thou shalt be king?

MANAHEM.

Yea, I remember it.

HEROD.

Thinking thou didst not know me, I replied:

I am of humble birth; whereat thou, smiling,

Didst smite me with thy hand, and saidst again:

Thou shalt be king; and let the friendly blows

That Manahem hath given thee on this day

Remind thee of the fickleness of fortune.

MANAHEM.

What more?

HEROD.

No more.

MANAHEM.

Yea, for I said to thee:

It shall be well with thee if thou love justice

And clemency towards thy fellow-men.

Hast thou done this, O King?

HEROD.

Go, ask my people.

MANAHEM.

And then, foreseeing all thy life, I added:

But these thou wilt forget; and at the end

Of life the Lord will punish thee.

HEROD.

The end!

When will that come? For this I sent to thee.

How long shall I still reign? Thou dost not answer!

Speak! shall I reign ten years?

MANAHEM.

Thou shalt reign twenty,

Nay, thirty years. I cannot name the end.

HEROD.

Thirty? I thank thee, good Essenian!

This is my birthday, and a happier one

Was never mine. We hold a banquet here.

See, yonder are Herodias and her daughter.

MANAHEM, aside.

'T is said that devils sometimes take the shape

Of ministering angels, clothed with air.

That they may be inhabitants of earth,

And lead man to destruction. Such are these.

HEROD.

Knowest thou John the Baptist?

MANAHEM.

Yea, I know him;

Who knows him not?

HEROD.

Know, then, this John the Baptist

Said that it was not lawful I should marry

My brother Philip's wife, and John the Baptist

Is here in prison. In my father's time

Matthias Margaloth was put to death

For tearing the golden eagle from its station

Above the Temple Gate,--a slighter crime

Than John is guilty of. These things are warnings

To intermeddlers not to play with eagles,

Living or dead. I think the Essenians

Are wiser, or more wary, are they not?

MANAHEM.

The Essenians do not marry.

HEROD.

Thou hast given

My words a meaning foreign to my thought.

MANAHEM.

Let me go hence, O King!

HEROD.

Stay yet awhile,

And see the daughter of Herodias dance.

Cleopatra of Jerusalem, my mother,

In her best days, was not more beautiful.

Music. THE DAUGHTER OP HERODIAS dances.

HEROD.

Oh, what was Miriam dancing with her timbrel,

Compared to this one?

MANAHEM, aside.

O thou Angel of Death,

Dancing at funerals among the women,

When men bear out the dead! The air is hot

And stifles me! Oh for a breath of air!

Bid me depart, O King!

HEROD.

Not yet. Come hither,

Salome, thou enchantress! Ask of me

Whate'er thou wilt; and even unto the half

Of all my kingdom, I will give it thee,

As the Lord liveth!

DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS, kneeling.

Give me here the head

Of John the Baptist on this silver charger!

HEROD.

Not that, dear child! I dare not; for the people

Regard John as a prophet.

DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS.

Thou hast sworn it.

HEROD.

For mine oath's sake, then. Send unto the prison;

Let him die quickly. Oh, accursed oath!

MANAHEM.

Bid me depart, O King!

HEROD.

Good Manahem,

Give me thy hand. I love the Essenians.

He's gone and hears me not! The guests are dumb,

Awaiting the pale face, the silent witness.

The lamps flare; and the curtains of the doorways

Wave to and fro as if a ghost were passing!

Strengthen my heart, red wine of Ascalon!

III

UNDER THE WALLS OF MACHAERUS

MANAHEM, rushing out.

Away from this Palace of sin!

The demons, the terrible powers

Of the air, that haunt its towers

And hide in its water-spouts,

Deafen me with the din

Of their laughter and their shouts

For the crimes that are done within!

Sink back into the earth,

Or vanish into the air,

Thou castle of despair!

Let it all be but a dream

Of the things of monstrous birth,

Of the things that only seem!

White Angel of the Moon,

Onafiel! be my guide

Out of this hateful place

Of sin and death, nor hide

In you black cloud too soon

Thy pale and tranquil face!

A trumpet is blown from the walls.

Hark! hark! It is the breath

Of the trump of doom and death,

From the battlements overhead

Like a burden of sorrow cast

On the midnight and the blast,

A wailing for the dead,

That the gusts drop and uplift!

O Herod, thy vengeance is swift!

O Herodias, thou hast been

The demon, the evil thing,

That in place of Esther the Queen,

In place of the lawful bride,

Hast lain at night by the side

Of Ahasuerus the king!

The trumpet again.

The Prophet of God is dead!

At a drunken monarch's call,

At a dancing-woman's beck,

They have severed that stubborn neck

And into the banquet-hall

Are bearing the ghastly head!

A body is thrown from the tower.

A torch of red

Lights the window with its glow;

And a white mass as of snow

Is hurled into the abyss

Of the black precipice,

That yawns for it below!

O hand of the Most High,

O hand of Adonai!

Bury it, hide it away

From the birds and beasts of prey,

And the eyes of the homicide,

More pitiless than they,

As thou didst bury of yore

The body of him that died

On the mountain of Peor!

Even now I behold a sign,

A threatening of wrath divine,

A watery, wandering star,

Through whose streaming hair, and the white

Unfolding garments of light,

That trail behind it afar,

The constellations shine!

And the whiteness and brightness appear

Like the Angel bearing the Seer

By the hair of his head, in the might

And rush of his vehement flight.

And I listen until I hear

From fathomless depths of the sky

The voice of his prophecy

Sounding louder and more near!

Malediction! malediction!

May the lightnings of heaven fall

On palace and prison wall,

And their desolation be

As the day of fear and affliction,

As the day of anguish and ire,

With the burning and fuel of fire,

In the Valley of the Sea!

IV

NICODEMUS AT NIGHT

NICODEMUS.

The streets are silent. The dark houses seem

Like sepulchres, in which the sleepers lie

Wrapped in their shrouds, and for the moment dead.

The lamps are all extinguished; only one

Burns steadily, and from the door its light

Lies like a shining gate across the street.

He waits for me. Ah, should this be at last

The long-expected Christ! I see him there

Sitting alone, deep-buried in his thought,

As if the weight of all the world were resting

Upon him, and thus bowed him down. O Rabbi,

We know thou art a Teacher come from God,

For no man can perform the miracles

Thou dost perform, except the Lord be with him.

Thou art a Prophet, sent here to proclaim

The Kingdom of the Lord. Behold in me

A Ruler of the Jews, who long have waited

The coming of that kingdom. Tell me of it.

CHRISTUS.

Verily, verily I say unto thee,

Except a man be born again, he cannot

Behold the Kingdom of God!

NICODEMUS.

Be born again?

How can a man be born when he is old?

Say, can he enter for a second time

Into his mother's womb, and so be born?

CHRISTUS.

Verily I say unto thee, except

A man be born of water and the spirit,

He cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.

For that which of the flesh is born, is flesh;

And that which of the spirit is born, is spirit.

NICODEMUS.

We Israelites from the Primeval Man

Adam Ahelion derive our bodies;

Our souls are breathings of the Holy Ghost.

No more than this we know, or need to know.

CHRISTUS.

Then marvel not, that I said unto thee

Ye must be born again.

NICODEMUS.

The mystery

Of birth and death we cannot comprehend.

CHRISTUS.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear

The sound thereof, but know not whence it cometh,

Nor whither it goeth. So is every one

Born of the spirit!

NICODEMUS, aside.

How can these things be?

He seems to speak of some vague realm of shadows,

Some unsubstantial kingdom of the air!

It is not this the Jews are waiting for,

Nor can this be the Christ, the Son of David,

Who shall deliver us!

CHRISTUS.

Art thou a master

Of Israel, and knowest not these things?

We speak that we do know, and testify

That we have seen, and ye will not receive

Our witness. If I tell you earthly things,

And ye believe not, how shall ye believe,

If I should tell you of things heavenly?

And no man hath ascended up to heaven,

But he alone that first came down from heaven,

Even the Son of Man which is in heaven!

NICODEMUS, aside.

This is a dreamer of dreams; a visionary,

Whose brain is overtasked, until he deems

The unseen world to be a thing substantial,

And this we live in, an unreal vision!

And yet his presence fascinates and fills me

With wonder, and I feel myself exalted

Into a higher region, and become

Myself in part a dreamer of his dreams,

A seer of his visions!

CHRISTUS.

And as Moses

Uplifted the serpent in the wilderness,

So must the Son of Man be lifted up;

That whosoever shall believe in Him

Shall perish not, but have eternal life.

He that believes in Him is not condemned;

He that believes not, is condemned already.

NICODEMUS, aside.

He speaketh like a Prophet of the Lord!

CHRISTUS.

This is the condemnation; that the light

Is come into the world, and men loved darkness

Rather than light, because their deeds are evil!

NICODEMUS, aside.

Of me he speaketh! He reproveth me,

Because I come by night to question him!

CHRISTUS.

For every one that doeth evil deeds

Hateth the light, nor cometh to the light

Lest he should be reproved.

NICODEMUS, aside.

Alas, how truly

He readeth what is passing in my heart!

CHRISTUS.

But he that doeth truth comes to the light,

So that his deeds may be made manifest,

That they are wrought in God.

NICODEMUS.

Alas! alas!

V

BLIND BARTIMEUS

BARTIMEUS.

Be not impatient, Chilion; it is pleasant

To sit here in the shadow of the walls

Under the palms, and hear the hum of bees,

And rumor of voices passing to and fro,

And drowsy bells of caravans on their way

To Sidon or Damascus. This is still

The City of Palms, and yet the walls thou seest

Are not the old walls, not the walls where Rahab

Hid the two spies, and let them down by cords

Out of the window, when the gates were shut,

And it was dark. Those walls were overthrown

When Joshua's army shouted, and the priests

Blew with their seven trumpets.

CHILION.

When was that?

BARTIMEUS.

O my sweet rose of Jericho, I know not

Hundreds of years ago. And over there

Beyond the river, the great prophet Elijah

Was taken by a whirlwind up to heaven

In chariot of fire, with fiery horses.

That is the plain of Moab; and beyond it

Rise the blue summits of Mount Abarim,

Nebo and Pisgah and Peor, where Moses

Died, whom the Lord knew face to face? and whom

He buried in a valley, and no man

Knows of his sepulchre unto this day.

CHILION.

Would thou couldst see these places, as I see them.

BARTIMEUS.

I have not seen a glimmer of the light

Since thou wast born. I never saw thy face,

And yet I seem to see it; and one day

Perhaps shall see it; for there is a Prophet

In Galilee, the Messiah, the Son of David,

Who heals the blind, if I could only find him.

I hear the sound of many feet approaching,

And voices, like the murmur of a crowd!

What seest thou?

CHILION.

A young man clad in white

Is coming through the gateway, and a crowd

Of people follow.

BARTIMEUS.

Can it be the Prophet!

O neighbors, tell me who it is that passes?

ONE OF THE CROWD.

Jesus of Nazareth.

BARTIMEUS, crying.

O Son of David!

Have mercy on me!

MANY OP THE CROWD.

Peace. Blind Bartimeus!

Do not disturb the Master.

BARTIMEUS, crying more vehemently.

Son of David,

Have mercy on me!

ONE OF THE CROWD.

See, the Master stops.

Be of good comfort; rise, He calleth thee!

BARTIMEUS, casting away his cloak.

Chilion! good neighbors! lead me on.

CHRISTUS.

What wilt thou

That I should do to thee?

BARTIMEUS.

Good Lord! my sight--

That I receive my sight!

CHRISTUS.

Receive thy sight!

Thy faith hath made thee whole!

THE CROWD.

He sees again!

CHRISTUS passes on, The crowd gathers round BARTIMEUS.

BARTIMEUS.

I see again; but sight bewilders me!

Like a remembered dream, familiar things

Come back to me. I see the tender sky

Above me, see the trees, the city walls,

And the old gateway, through whose echoing arch

I groped so many years; and you, my neighbors;

But know you by your friendly voices only.

How beautiful the world is! and how wide!

Oh, I am miles away, if I but look!

Where art thou, Chilion?

CHILION.

Father, I am here.

BARTIMEUS.

Oh let me gaze upon thy face, dear child!

For I have only seen thee with my hands!

How beautiful thou art! I should have known thee;

Thou hast her eyes whom we shall see hereafter!

O God of Abraham! Elion! Adonai!

Who art thyself a Father, pardon me

If for a moment I have thee postponed

To the affections and the thoughts of earth,

Thee, and the adoration that I owe thee,

When by thy power alone these darkened eyes

Have been unsealed again to see thy light!

VI

JACOB'S WELL

A SAMARITAN WOMAN.

The sun is hot; and the dry east-wind blowing

Fills all the air with dust. The birds are silent;

Even the little fieldfares in the corn

No longer twitter; only the grasshoppers

Sing their incessant song of sun and summer.

I wonder who those strangers were I met

Going into the city? Galileans

They seemed to me in speaking, when they asked

The short way to the market-place. Perhaps

They are fishermen from the lake; or travellers,

Looking to find the inn. And here is some one

Sitting beside the well; another stranger;

A Galilean also by his looks.

What can so many Jews be doing here

Together in Samaria? Are they going

Up to Jerusalem to the Passover?

Our Passover is better here at Sychem,

For here is Ebal; here is Gerizim,

The mountain where our father Abraham

Went up to offer Isaac; here the tomb

Of Joseph,--for they brought his bones Egypt

And buried them in this land, and it is holy.

CHRISTUS.

Give me to drink.

SAMARITAN WOMAN.

How can it be that thou,

Being a Jew, askest to drink of me

Which am a woman of Samaria?

You Jews despise us; have no dealings with us;

Make us a byword; call us in derision

The silly folk of Sychar. Sir, how is it

Thou askest drink of me?

CHRISTUS.

If thou hadst known

The gift of God, and who it is that sayeth

Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him;

He would have given thee the living water.

SAMARITAN WOMAN.

Sir, thou hast naught to draw with, and the well

Is deep! Whence hast thou living water?

Say, art thou greater than our father Jacob,

Which gave this well to us, and drank thereof

Himself, and all his children and his cattle?

CHRISTUS.

Ah, whosoever drinketh of this water

Shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh

The water I shall give him shall not thirst

Forevermore, for it shall be within him

A well of living water, springing up

Into life everlasting.

SAMARITAN WOMAN.

Every day

I must go to and fro, in heat and cold,

And I am weary. Give me of this water,

That I may thirst not, nor come here to draw.

CHRISTUS.

Go call thy husband, woman, and come hither.

SAMARITAN WOMAN.

I have no husband, Sir.

CHRISTUS.

Thou hast well said

I have no husband. Thou hast had five husbands;

And he whom now thou hast is not thy husband.

SAMARITAN WOMAN.

Surely thou art a Prophet, for thou readest

The hidden things of life! Our fathers worshipped

Upon this mountain Gerizim; and ye say

The only place in which men ought to worship

Is at Jerusalem.

CHRISTUS.

Believe me, woman,

The hour is coming, when ye neither shall

Upon this mount, nor at Jerusalem,

Worship the Father; for the hour is coming,

And is now come, when the true worshippers

Shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth!

The Father seeketh such to worship Him.

God is a spirit; and they that worship Him

Must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

SAMARITAN WOMAN.

Master, I know that the Messiah cometh,

Which is called Christ; and he will tell us all things.

CHRISTUS.

I that speak unto thee am He!

THE DISCIPLES, returning.

Behold,

The Master sitting by the well, and talking

With a Samaritan woman! With a woman

Of Sychar, the silly people, always boasting

Of their Mount Ebal, and Mount Gerizim,

Their Everlasting Mountain, which they think

Higher and holier than our Mount Moriah!

Why, once upon the Feast of the New Moon,

When our great Sanhedrim of Jerusalem

Had all its watch-fires kindled on the hills

To warn the distant villages, these people

Lighted up others to mislead the Jews,

And make a mockery of their festival!

See, she has left the Master; and is running

Back to the city!

SAMARITAN WOMAN.

Oh, come see a man

Who hath told me all things that I ever did!

Say, is not this the Christ?

THE DISCIPLES.

Lo, Master, here

Is food, that we have brought thee from the city.

We pray thee eat it.

CHRISTUS.

I have food to eat

Ye know not of.

THE DISCIPLES, to each other.

Hath any man been here,

And brought Him aught to eat, while we were gone?

CHRISTUS.

The food I speak of is to do the will

Of Him that sent me, and to finish his work.

Do ye not say, Lo! there are yet four months

And cometh, harvest? I say unto you,

Lift up your eyes, and look upon the fields,

For they are white already unto harvest!

VII

THE COASTS OF CAESAREA PHILIPPI

CHRISTUS, going up the mountain.

Who do the people say I am?

JOHN.

Some say

That thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias;

And others Jeremiah.

JAMES.

Or that one

Of the old Prophets is risen again.

CHRISTUS.

But who say ye I am?

PETER.

Thou art the Christ?

Thou art the Son of God!

CHRISTUS.

Blessed art thou,

Simon Barjona! Flesh and blood hath not

Revealed it unto thee, but even my Father,

Which is in Heaven. And I say unto thee

That thou art Peter; and upon this rock

I build my Church, and all the gates of Hell

Shall not prevail against it. But take heed

Ye tell no man that I am the Christ.

For I must go up to Jerusalem,

And suffer many things, and be rejected

Of the Chief Priests, and of the Scribes and Elders,

And must be crucified, and the third day

Shall rise again!

PETER.

Be it far from thee, Lord!

This shall not be!

CHRISTUS.

Get thee behind me, Satan!

Thou savorest not the things that be of God,

But those that be of men! If any will

Come after me, let him deny himself,

And daily take his cross, and follow me.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it,

And whosoever will lose his life shall find it.

For wherein shall a man be profited

If he shall gain the whole world, and shall lose

Himself or be a castaway?

JAMES, after a long pause.

Why doth

The Master lead us up into this mountain?

PETER.

He goeth up to pray.

JOHN.

See where He standeth

Above us on the summit of the hill!

His face shines as the sun! and all his raiment

Exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller

On earth can white them! He is not alone;

There are two with him there; two men of eld,

Their white beards blowing on the mountain air,

Are talking with him.

JAMES.

I am sore afraid!

PETER.

Who and whence are they?

JOHN.

Moses and Elias!

PETER.

O Master! it is good for us to be here!

If thou wilt, let us make three tabernacles;

For thee one, and for Moses and Elias!

JOHN.

Behold a bright cloud sailing in the sun!

It overshadows us. A golden mist

Now hides them from us, and envelops us

And all the mountains in a luminous shadow!

I see no more. The nearest rocks are hidden.

VOICE from the cloud.

Lo! this is my beloved Son! Hear Him!

PETER.

It is the voice of God. He speaketh to us,

As from the burning bush He spake to Moses!

JOHN.

The cloud-wreaths roll away. The veil is lifted;

We see again. Behold! He is alone.

It was a vision that our eyes beheld,

And it hath vanished into the unseen.

CHRISTUS, coming down from the mountain.

I charge ye, tell the vision unto no one,

Till the Son of Man is risen from the dead!

PETER, aside.

Again He speaks of it! What can it mean,

This rising from the dead?

JAMES.

Why say the Scribe!

Elias must first come?

CHRISTUS.

He cometh first,

Restoring all things. But I say to you,

That this Elias is already come.

They knew him not, but have done unto him

Whate'er they listed, as is written of him.

PETER, aside.

It is of John the Baptist He is speaking.

JAMES.

As we descend, see, at the mountain's foot,

A crowd of people; coming, going, thronging

Round the disciples, that we left behind us,

Seeming impatient, that we stay so long.

PETER.

It is some blind man, or some paralytic

That waits the Master's coming to be healed.

JAMES.

I see a boy, who struggles and demeans him

As if an unclean spirit tormented him!

A CERTAIN MAN, running forward.

Lord! I beseech thee, look upon my son.

He is mine only child; a lunatic,

And sorely vexed; for oftentimes he falleth

Into the fire and oft into the water.

Wherever the dumb spirit taketh him

He teareth him. He gnasheth with his teeth,

And pines away. I spake to thy disciples

That they should cast him out, and they could not.

CHRISTUS.

O faithless generation and perverse!

How long shall I be with you, and suffer you?

Bring thy son hither.

BYSTANDERS.

How the unclean spirit

Seizes the boy, and tortures him with pain!

He falleth to the ground and wallows, foaming!

He cannot live.

CHRISTUS.

How long is it ago

Since this came unto him?

THE FATHER.

Even of a child.

Oh, have compassion on us, Lord, and help us,

If thou canst help us.

CHRISTUS.

If thou canst believe.

For unto him that verily believeth,

All things are possible.

THE FATHER.

Lord, I believe!

Help thou mine unbelief!

CHRISTUS.

Dumb and deaf spirit,

Come out of him, I charge thee, and no more

Enter thou into him!

The boy utters a loud cry of pain, and then lies still.

BYSTANDERS.

How motionless

He lieth there. No life is left in him.

His eyes are like a blind man's, that see not.

The boy is dead!

OTHERS.

Behold! the Master stoops,

And takes him by the hand, and lifts him up.

He is not dead.

DISCIPLES.

But one word from those lips,

But one touch of that hand, and he is healed!

Ah, why could we not do it?

THE FATHER.

My poor child!

Now thou art mine again. The unclean spirit

Shall never more torment thee! Look at me!

Speak unto me! Say that thou knowest me!

DISCIPLES to CHRISTUS departing.

Good Master, tell us, for what reason was it

We could not cast him out?

CHRISTUS.

Because of your unbelief!

VIII

THE YOUNG RULER

CHRISTUS.

Two men went up into the temple to pray.

The one was a self-righteous Pharisee,

The other a Publican. And the Pharisee

Stood and prayed thus within himself: O God,

I thank thee I am not as other men,

Extortioners, unjust, adulterers,

Or even as this Publican. I fast

Twice in the week, and also I give tithes

Of all that I possess! The Publican,

Standing afar off, would not lift so much

Even as his eyes to heaven, but smote his breast,

Saying: God be merciful to me a sinner!

I tell you that this man went to his house

More justified than the other. Every one

That doth exalt himself shall be abased,

And he that humbleth himself shall be exalted!

CHILDREN, among themselves.

Let us go nearer! He is telling stories!

Let us go listen to them.

AN OLD JEW.

Children, children!

What are ye doing here? Why do ye crowd us?

It was such little vagabonds as you

That followed Elisha, mucking him and crying:

Go up, thou bald-head! But the bears--the bears

Came out of the wood, and tare them!

A MOTHER.

Speak not thus!

We brought them here, that He might lay his hands

On them, and bless them.

CHRISTUS.

Suffer little children

To come unto me, and forbid them not;

Of such is the kingdom of heaven; and their angels

Look always on my Father's face.

Takes them in his arms and blesses them.

A YOUNG RULER, running.

Good Master!

What good thing shall I do, that I may have

Eternal life?

CHRISTUS.

Why callest thou me good?

There is none good but one, and that is God.

If thou wilt enter into life eternal,

Keep the commandments.

YOUNG RULER.

Which of them?

CHRISTUS.

Thou shalt not

Commit adultery; thou shalt not kill;

Thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness;

Honor thy father and thy mother; and love

Thy neighbor as thyself.

YOUNG RULER.

From my youth up

All these things have I kept. What lack I yet?

JOHN.

With what divine compassion in his eyes

The Master looks upon this eager youth,

As if he loved him!

CHRISTUS.

Wouldst thou perfect be,

Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor,

And come, take up thy cross, and follow me,

And thou shalt have thy treasure in the heavens.

JOHN.

Behold, how sorrowful he turns away!

CHRISTUS.

Children! how hard it is for them that trust

In riches to enter into the kingdom of God!

'T is easier for a camel to go through

A needle's eye, than for the rich to enter

The kingdom of God!

JOHN.

Ah, who then can be saved?

CHRISTUS.

With men this is indeed impossible,

But unto God all things are possible!

PETER.

Behold, we have left all, and followed thee.

What shall we have therefor?

CHRISTUS.

Eternal life.

IX

AT BETHANY

MARTHA busy about household affairs.

MARY sitting at the feet of CHRISTUS.

MARTHA.

She sitteth idly at the Master's feet.

And troubles not herself with household cares.

'T is the old story. When a guest arrives

She gives up all to be with him; while I

Must be the drudge, make ready the guest-chamber,

Prepare the food, set everything in order,

And see that naught is wanting in the house.

She shows her love by words, and I by works.

MARY.

O Master! when thou comest, it is always

A Sabbath in the house. I cannot work;

I must sit at thy feet; must see thee, hear thee!

I have a feeble, wayward, doubting heart,

Incapable of endurance or great thoughts,

Striving for something that it cannot reach,

Baffled and disappointed, wounded, hungry;

And only when I hear thee am I happy,

And only when I see thee am at peace!

Stronger than I, and wiser, and far better

In every manner, is my sister Martha.

Thou seest how well she orders everything

To make thee welcome; how she comes and goes,

Careful and cumbered ever with much serving,

While I but welcome thee with foolish words!

Whene'er thou speakest to me, I am happy;

When thou art silent, I am satisfied.

Thy presence is enough. I ask no more.

Only to be with thee, only to see thee,

Sufficeth me. My heart is then at rest.

I wonder I am worthy of so much.

MARTHA.

Lord, dost thou care not that my sister Mary

Hath left me thus to wait on thee alone?

I pray thee, bid her help me.

CHRISTUS.

Martha, Martha,

Careful and troubled about many things

Art thou, and yet one thing alone is needful!

Thy sister Mary hath chosen that good part,

Which never shall be taken away from her!

X

BORN BLIND

A JEW.

Who is this beggar blinking in the sun?

Is it not he who used to sit and beg

By the Gate Beautiful?

ANOTHER.

It is the same.

A THIRD.

It is not he, but like him, for that beggar

Was blind from birth. It cannot be the same.

THE BEGGAR.

Yea, I am he.

A JEW.

How have thine eyes been opened?

THE BEGGAR.

A man that is called Jesus made a clay

And put it on mine eyes, and said to me:

Go to Siloam's Pool and wash thyself.

I went and washed, and I received my sight.

A JEW.

Where is he?

THE BEGGAR.

I know not.

PHARISEES.

What is this crowd

Gathered about a beggar? What has happened?

A JEW.

Here is a man who hath been blind from birth,

And now he sees. He says a man called Jesus

Hath healed him.

PHARISEES.

As God liveth, the Nazarene!

How was this done?

THE BEGGAR.

Rabboni, he put clay

Upon mine eyes; I washed, and now I see.

PHARISEES.

When did he this?

THE BEGGAR.

Rabboni, yesterday.

PHARISEES.

The Sabbath day. This man is not of God,

Because he keepeth not the Sabbath day!

A JEW.

How can a man that is a sinner do

Such miracles?

PHARISEES.

What dost thou say of him

That hath restored thy sight?

THE BEGGAR.

He is a Prophet.

A JEW.

This is a wonderful story, but not true,

A beggar's fiction. He was not born blind,

And never has been blind!

OTHERS.

Here are his parents.

Ask them.

PHARISEES.

Is this your son?

THE PARENTS.

Rabboni, yea;

We know this is our son.

PHARISEES.

Was he born blind?

THE PARENTS.

He was born blind.

PHARISEES.

Then how doth he now see?

THE PARENTS, aside.

What answer shall we make? If we confess

It was the Christ, we shall be driven forth

Out of the Synagogue!

We know, Rabboni,

This is our son, and that he was born blind;

But by what means he seeth, we know not,

Or who his eyes hath opened, we know not.

He is of age; ask him; we cannot say;

He shall speak for himself.

PHARISEES.

Give God the praise!

We know the man that healed thee is a sinner!

THE BEGGAR.

Whether He be a sinner, I know not;

One thing I know; that whereas I was blind,

I now do see.

PHARISEES.

How opened he thine eyes?

What did he do?

THE BEGGAR.

I have already told you.

Ye did not hear: why would ye hear again?

Will ye be his disciples?

PHARISEES.

God of Moses!

Are we demoniacs, are we halt or blind,

Or palsy-stricken, or lepers, or the like,

That we should join the Synagogue of Satan,

And follow jugglers? Thou art his disciple,

But we are disciples of Moses; and we know

That God spake unto Moses; but this fellow,

We know not whence he is!

THE BEGGAR.

Why, herein is

A marvellous thing! Ye know not whence he is,

Yet he hath opened mine eyes! We know that God

Heareth not sinners; but if any man

Doeth God's will, and is his worshipper,

Him doth he hear. Oh, since the world began

It was not heard that any man hath opened

The eyes of one that was born blind. If He

Were not of God, surely he could do nothing!

PHARISEES.

Thou, who wast altogether born in sins

And in iniquities, dost thou teach us?

Away with thee out of the holy places,

Thou reprobate, thou beggar, thou blasphemer!

THE BEGGAR is cast out.

XI

SIMON MAGUS AND HELEN OF TYRE

On the house-top at Endor. Night. A lighted lantern on a table.