Christ

Of all portrayals of the Son of Man
I love the dim portrayal at Milan,
Where among those few friends He sits apart,
With the burden of a world upon his heart.
The Man of Sorrows I doth He year by year
Fade from the world's heart, as He fades from here ?
Ah ! but the sorrow, the sorrow will not fade,
Though the Consoler in the grave be laid !
Doth He not seem rather to make long pause
In this dim place, waiting until his cause
Triumph at last, yet evermore to fade
Under this agelong disappointment laid
On Him, because the victory is delayed?
Hence the mute woe his countenance yel wears :
" Is it not more than eighteen hundred years?
And still I see my children bathed in tears ;
Still with their greed for gain, their lust for power.
Men in high places do my little ones devour.
Was it for nought the life of loneliness,
Lacerate all with alien distress ;
This tenderest heart of me, the human lover,
Wrung for men's cruel selfishness all over?
Was it for nought the unutterable agony
Among those olives of Gethseniane ?
F(jr nought that hour supreme upon the cross,
When all the desolation of their loss
Rose a wan cloud before me, dying alone,
Hiding the Father even from the Son ?
Yet in the end, ' It is finished ! ' was my cry.
Yielding my spirit how confidingly
Into his hands, because I knew that He
Would yield my holy, happy kingdom birth.
For which my heart was broken upon earth."