I wonder what is this day to you,
Looking down from the upper skies!
Is there a pang at your gentle heart?
Is there a shade in your tender eyes?
Do you think up there of the whispered words
That thrilled your soul long years ago?
Does ever a haunting undertone
Blend with the chantings sweet and low?
When this day dawned (if where you are
Skies grow red when the morn is near)
Did you know that before its close
The love once yours would be on its bier?
Did you know that another’s lip
Would redden with kisses once your own,
And the golden cup of a younger life
O’erflow with the wine once yours alone?
Do you remember? Ah, my saint,
Bend your ear from the ether blue!
Have you risen to heights so far
That earth and its loves are nought to you?
Do you care that your place is filled?
Does it matter that now at last
The turf above you has grown so deep
That its shadow overlies your past?
O, belovèd, I may not know!
Heaven is afar, and the grave is dumb,
And out of the silence so profound
Neither token nor voice may come!
We try to think that we understand;
But whether you wake, or whether you sleep,
Or whether our deeds are aught to you,
Is still a mystery strange and deep!
“CHRISTUS!”
Over the desolate sea-side town
With a terrible tumult the night came down,
And the fierce wind swept through the empty street,
With the drifting snow for a winding-sheet.
Elsie, the fisherman’s daughter, in bed
Lay and listened in awe and dread,
But sprang to her feet in sudden fear
When over the tempest, loud and clear,
A voice cried, “Christus!”
“Christus! Christus!” and nothing more.
Was it a cry at the cottage-door?
She left her chamber with flying feet;
She loosened the bolts with fingers fleet;
She lifted the latch, but only the din
Of the furious storm and the snow swept in.
She looked without: not a soul was there,
But still rang out on the startled air
The strange cry, “Christus!”
“Christus! Christus!” She slept at last,
Though the old house rocked in the wintry blast;
And when she awoke the world was still,
A wide, white silence from sea to hill.
No creature stirred in the morning glow;
There was not a footprint in the snow;
Yet again through the hush, as faint and far
As if it came from another star,
A voice sighed “Christus!”
“Christus! Christus!” Who can it be,
O Christ our Lord, that is calling Thee
In a foreign tongue, with a woe as wild
As that of some lost, forsaken child?
She turned from the window with a startled gaze:
She clasped her hands in a pale amaze,
Hearkening still, till again she heard,
As in a waking dream, the word—
That strange word, “Christus!”
Then over the hill with weary feet
She toiled through the drifts to the village-street.
The villagers gathered in eager haste,
And all day long in the snowy waste
They sought in vain for the one who cried
To Him who of old was crucified:
Then, turning away with a laugh, they said,
“’Twas only the wild wind overhead,
Your cry of ‘Christus!’”
She watched their going with earnest eyes:
Hark! what voice to the taunt replies?
The trees were still as if struck with death;
The wind was soft as a baby’s breath;
The sobbing sea was asleep at last,
Scourged no more by the furious blast;
Yet, surely as ever from human tongue
A cry of grief or despair was wrung,
Some voice sighed, “Christus!”
Burned on her cheek a sudden flame
As her heart’s strong throbbings went and came,
And she stood alone on the lonely shore,
Gazing the wide black waters o’er.
“Whether it comes from heaven or hell,
This voice I have learned to know too well—
Whether from lips alive or dead,
Or from the hovering air,” she said—
“Whether it comes from sea or land,
I will not sleep till I understand
This cry of ‘Christus!’”
“Christus! Christus!” Faint and slow
Rose the wail from the drifted snow
Under a low-browed, beetling rock,
Strong to withstand the whirlwind’s shock.
There, in the heart of the snowy mound,
The buried form of a man she found—
A Spanish sailor, with beard of brown
Over his red scarf flowing down,
And jewelled ears that were strange to see.
She was bending over it, when—ah me!
The shrill cry, “Christus!”
Rang out as if from the stony lips
Whence life had parted in drear eclipse,
As if the soul of the dead man cried
Again unto Christ the Crucified.
The rose had fled from her cheeks so red,
But still she knelt by his side and said,
Under her breath, “I must understand
Whether from heaven or sea or land
Comes that cry, ‘Christus!’”
She laid her hand on the pulseless breast!
What fluttered beneath the crimson vest?
A bird with plumage of green and gold,
Nestling away from the piercing cold,
Was folded close to the silent heart
From which it had felt the life depart;
And when she held it against her cheek,
As plainly as ever a bird could speak
It sobbed out, ‘Christus!’”
And evermore when the winds blew loud,
And the trees in the grasp of the storm were bowed,
And the lowering wings of the tempest beat
The drifting snow in the village-street,
Just as its master in death had cried
To Christ, the Holy, the Crucified,
Pouring his soul in one wild word—
Pray God that the cry in heaven was heard!—
The bird cried, “Christus!”