Classic Poem

All the church is dark.
Godfrey comes in darkness.
Darkness cannot smother sin; contrition
Rises to his God before the lark.

Not a sough or gust;
Footsteps thud and rustle;
Godfrey barefoot, Christ would hear him coming;
Silence is not deeper in the dust.

Nearer and more near,
Where the calvary reareth
High into the dome its tree of sorrow,
Godfrey comes, and lays aside his gear.

Lowly Godfrey kneels;
One to one his heels set
Closely, looks towards the face of Jesus,
Which the darkness from his sight conceals.

Comes the timid, raw
Dawning; stiff and awful
Start the members of the grisly Saviour,
Gleam the nails, the crown, which bite and gnaw.

Round the shapeless, dim
Head awakes the nimbus;
Bright and brighter throwing up the contours,
Arms and shoulder, throat and head of HIM.

GODFREY:
Salutation, Host!
Christ, avail thy costly
Sacrifice for Godfrey, soul unworthy
Give me blessing of thy holy Ghost

Salutation, Queen!
Lady chaste and cleanly;
Seek his feet, great Queen, with my entreaty;
Let not mine but through thy face be seen.

Do thou take my part,
Stephen, saint and martyr,
Saint of every saint and every mortal,
Eldest of the glorified who art.

Wounds, oh, be not dumb;
Holy wounds, I humbly
Beg your intercession for his favour
To my suit, be't only but a crumb.

OLIVER:
Godfrey, thou'rt abroad
Early, for a dawdler;
Thou'rt a sinful or a simple sinner
Thus betimes so to importune God.

GODFREY:
Christ of pity, hear!
Christ, thy feet are weary,
Nailed and fixed, o suffering Christ, and heavy;
Mine are heavier than I can bear.

Thine are heavy, Lord
Jesus Christ, in order
That thy sinner Godfrey may go lighter
In the peace redemption doth afford.

Mine, o Lord, are thick;
Drunk with mire and sickness;
Weight of weakness, weight and filth of travel,
Weigh them, make them more and more unquick

Holy Saviour, lift
Godfrey from the shifting,
Clogging sloughs of time, and sorrow-stagnant
Pools, and let his feet for thee be swift.

OLIVER:
Jesus of the Cross!
Saviour, beauty's blossom,
Balm upon the wounds which itch and tingle,
Oil upon the floods which boil and toss;

Jesus, hear my prayer;
Fix and nail my errant
Feet upon thy cross for my advantage;
Stay them from their hurrying here and there

Swift, from shame to shame,
Ever run they aimless;
All the wit and will they have is evil;
Much I wonder how they hither came.

GODFREY:
For thy stabbed hands' sake,
Saviour, take my aching
Hands, and make them firm and whole and lissom;
Bid the caked and drowsy palms awake.

OLIVER:
Lord, there is no thing
That my restless fingers
Have not done to thine and my dishonour.
Who shall check and guide their wandering?

GODFREY:
Lord, I see thy knees
Bleed and throb, by reason
Of thy hours and anguish in the garden;
Lord, thy wounded knees have little ease.

Worn, like thine for men,
Are my knees with penance;
Make them whole and glad with thy forgiveness,
For thy cross and passion's sake, Amen.

OLIVER:
Teach my knees to bow
To thy cross; endow me,
Lord, with all the grace of holy penance;
Make me ever love to kneel as now.

GODFREY:
Sorrow, Saviour, blears
Both thine eyes: but piercing
Looks thy love from every suffering feature;
Scarcely can I see thy face for tears.

Do thou dry mine eyes;
Do thou thaw the icy
Palsy of my heart, allay the fever
Which in every member of me lies.

OLIVER:
What my wilful sight
Sees, it sees unrightly:
I should sin against thee less, Lord jesus,
Walked I, like the blind, in even night

GODFREY:
Look on me forlorn;
Saviour, turn thy mournful,
Aching eyes on Godfrey, who implores thee
Christ, I feel the bite of every thorn

Round thy blessed head
Sharp and hard and dreadful;
Christ, I feel thy torments in my shoulders;
Christ, my very heart within is dead.

Mercy infinite,
Pity, pity, pity.
Christ, I have no words to tell my sorrow;
All my woe thou knowest, every whit.

OLIVER:
Saviour, would'st thou give
Oliver a living
Memory of all that thou endurest,
Make his stupid brain less like a sieve;

Had he sometimes pain,
Reason for complaining,
Oliver might love the holy office,
Oliver might be thy child again.

GODFREY:
Salutation, Host!
Christ, avail thy costly
Sacrifice for Godfrey, soul unworthy.
Give me blessing of thy holy Ghost.

OLIVER:
Jesus of the Cross!
Jesus, beauty's blossom,
Balm upon the wounds which itch and tingle,
Oil upon the floods which boil and toss.