Classic Poem

Again 'twas Easter once, and Christ stood glancing
Once more from Olivet's heights adown the vale:
Elsewhere on all the fields was Spring advancing,
But all was desolate here, and gray and pale.

Yet, as the swallow, where the conflagration
Laid a fair mansion waste, still hovers round,
And soon, though burned her former habitation,
Her nest new-built in ruined wall is found;

So, to these scenes of wreck and desolation,
Man slowly ventured back, and in the stone
Built hut, house, palace for his habitation,
Till lo! he saw a prosperous city grown.

And as the wind to some fire-blackened dwelling,
Full many a grain of dust and seed-corn blows,
Till even death's ashes into life are swelling,
When moss or bush thereon takes root and grows;

So here would man create a garden, flinging
On this dun sand handfuls of richer earth,
And on his back a bit of spring-time bringing
To the waste vale whence God had driven him forth.

When over churchyard-stones, among the sleeping
And mouldering bodies of his brother-men
Man walks, the icy thought comes o'er him creeping:
Dust wast thou once, dust shalt thou be again!

And would this city once but look around her,
Born of destruction, on destruction's brink,
Might not that churchyard sentence well confound her:
Of ruins built, thou shalt in ruin sink!

She heeds it not! For hark! the bells, all crying,
Clang from the towers loud peals of joy and long!
Who sings for joy, can have no thought of dying,
And bells are, aye, a city's voice of song.

Where rises yon gray dome on rock foundation,
Through all the halls, in all the fields around,
Bristling in helm and mail, the congregation
Of brazen men throng to the trumpet's sound.

How on the marble pavement clink the lances!
How neighing war-steeds each to each reply!
Gay banners flap, the dazzling armor glances,
A sword hangs rattling from each warrior's thigh.

Ha! will they go against their God in battle,
Whose holy house they thus in brass surround?
Ha! will they storm the skies with war's wild rattle,
Who at the temple's gates in arms are found?

But no! How suddenly the organ's pealing
Brings down that host in homage to the ground!
All heads are bowed, the haughty limbs are kneeling,
The iron fists against the breastplates sound.

I see, on high, the cross of Christ, the holy,
Float from the temple's pinnacles, light and free;
All on their bosoms wear that ensign lowly,
Oh, that they, too, might, each, God's temple be!

In all the colors of the rainbow beaming,
Stitched to their shirts of mail, the cross they wear,
Like living, walking, red-cross standards, gleaming
And lowered for solemn consecration there.

A thousand candles at the altar blazing,
The priest now reaks the consecrated bread:
Two blood-staine hands I plainly see him raising,
Not with the blood of Christ those hands are red!

At Sanctus when he beat his breast, confessing,
Beneath his chasuble a breastplate rung;
And, for the holy sprinkler, at the blessing,
Almost the sword, which stood near by, he swung.

Next to the altar, reverently bending,
Kneels, on the velvet stool, a man alone;
Even on his knees in beauty all transcending,
In sooth, erect, still fairer had he shone!

The man's low prayers his native oaks resemble,
Which, though each vein its life-blood proudly feels,
Bow down their branches to the ground and tremble,
When, o'er their heads, the storm, God's organ, peals:

" 'T is done! — alas, like all man's follies ending!
No stone that has not felt man's battle-flood!
No leaf, but with its human tear-drop bending!
No rood of land unstained with human blood!

" We press the grave on which, for ages yearning,
All Christendom has gazed with tearful eyes,
As the fond sun-flower stands forever turning
Full on the place where her loved Lord shall rise.

" As if each zone its richest flowers were lending
To lay upon thy grave a funeral crown,
So, Lord, all nations, here, together bending,
Into thy holy sepulchre look down.

" The cross — how once this awe-struck valley feared it,
The bloody post of infamy and crime! —
On Golgotha once more we now have reared it,
A monument of victory, sublime!

" On all the crowns of kings, all banners gleaming,
In every land, from every mountain's brow,
On every mast, o'er every ocean streaming,
A gallows once, it shines in glory now!

" That ensign, every her mail-shirt bears it,
It flames on domes, high sparkling in the skies,
Her fairest jewel, woman's bosom wears it,
Victorious on the battle-flag it flies!

" When with thy monument we crowned these places,
Alas, our own beside it higher rose,
As priests, anointing proudly royal races,
Dream that their grace the kingly crown bestows.

" They brought me purple! not from Sidon's water,
Nor Tyrian shell, that dark-red dye it drew;
Though thrice baptized in blood of heathen slaughter,
Gray as this vale's shall be, one day, its hue.

" With a resplendent coronet they crowned me!
Its golden leaves, thrice heated through and through
In the red glare of huts and cities round me,
Like them, one day, to dust shall crumble, too!

" One crown alone shall shed eternal lustre
Along this valley, sparkling far and wide:
Of thorns was braided once its garland-cluster!
Woe, that this crown should glitter by its side! —

" Sure, to this valley God no echo lendeth,
That psalm and bell-note die as empty sound!
No offering-smoke of ours to heaven ascendeth;
Why must it crawl and writhe along the ground?

" I see the church in festive garments yonder;
No palm-boughs green, but bloody swords I view;
The gloomy offering of Cain I ponder,
Who in cold-blooded wrath his brother slew

" I think: must not, on all these brows, loud-crying,
The blood-mark, " Brother's-murderer, " be seen! —
Were I that pilgrim on the threshold lying!
Ah, were my heart, like his, so still and clean!

" Who taught his way o'er ocean's watery ridges?
Who led him o'er the billowy mountain-chain?
Reached him a guiding hand on dizzying bridges?
The lofty faith that sent, could well sustain!

" And had he sunk at sea, the billow lightly
His corpse had wafted to the holy strand!
And had he perished on the desert, brightly
His dying eye had seen the promised land!

" His pilgrim-staff has heard no-death-groan horrid,
No blood has stained his pilgrim-cloak of hair;
As fanning pinions cool a burning forehead,
Faith wafts to him mild consolation there.

" Oh, that no crown upon my head were sparkling!
Were mine that pilgrim's hat and scollop-shell!
The shell is empty, for, deep-hid and darkling,
The pearl of faith within his heart rests well.

" Oh, were my head on yonder stone reposing,
Cradled, like his, to sleep, to dream, to die!
The lily pale on earth's low lap is closing,
While Faith soars upward to the starry sky."