A \" 
 
CHRIST IN THE 
 POETRY OF TODAY 
 
 AN ANTHOLOGY 
 FROM AMERICAN POETS 
 
 COMPILED BY 
 
 MARTHA FOOTE CROW 
 
 THE WOMANS PRESS 
 
 600 LEXINGTON AVENUE 
 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 
 1917 
 
Copyright, 1917, by 
 
 The National Board of the Young Womens Christian Associations 
 
 of the United States of America 
 
 600 Lexington Avenue 
 
 New York City 
 
We place Thy sacred name upon our browc; 
 
 Our cycles from Thy natal day we score: 
 Yet, spite of all our songs and all our vows, 
 
 We thirst and ever thirst to know Thee mere. 
 
 For Thou art Mystery and Question still; 
 
 Even when we see Thee lifted as a sign 
 Drawing all men unto that hapless hill 
 
 With the resistless power of Love Divine. 
 
 Still Thou art Question while rings in our ears 
 Thine outcry to a world discord-beset: 
 
 Have I been with thee all these many years, 
 World, dost thou not know ME even yet? 
 
I 
 
 THE STORY OF THE NATIVITY OF JESUS 1 
 
 II 
 
 THE YOUTH OF JESUS 33 
 
 III 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 61 
 
 IV 
 
 THE GREAT WEEK IN JESUS LIFE 91 
 
 V 
 
 CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 125 
 
 VI 
 
 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 137 
 
 VII 
 
 THE WORLD S JESUS... . 165 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 THE copyright of this book does not carry with it the 
 ownership of the separate poems. These remain the 
 possession of the original owners, who have been good 
 enough to allow the use of them in this anthology. 
 For such use the compiler extends thanks to all the 
 publishers, periodicals, and poets who have thus made 
 the collection possible. 
 
 Acknowledgments are here made to the many 
 publishers who have allowed quotations from volumes 
 published by them: 
 
 For permission to use a selection from Poems, by 
 Meredith Nicholson, copyright, 1906, used by special 
 permission of the publishers, the Bobbs-Merrill Com 
 pany. 
 
 To Mr. E. B. Brooks, publisher, for permission to 
 use a poem called "The Madonna of the Carpenter 
 Shop, " from The Lark Went Singing, by Ruth Guthrie 
 Harding. 
 
 To the Century Company for permission to use 
 poems from Collected Plays and Poems, by Cale Young 
 Rice. 
 
 To the Thomas Y. Crowell Company for permission 
 to quote from America the Beautiful and Other Poems, 
 by Katharine Lee Bates, and from Poems, by Sophie 
 Jewett. 
 
 To the George H. Doran Company for permission 
 to quote from The Roadside Fire, copyright, 1912, and 
 
Life and Living, copyright, 1916, by Amelia Josephine 
 Burr; and from Trees and Other Poems, copyright, 1914, 
 by Joyce Kilmer. 
 
 To Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company for per 
 mission to quote from The Shoes of Happiness and 
 Other Poems and from Lincoln and Other Poems, by 
 Edwin Markham. 
 
 To Messrs. Duffield & Company for permission to 
 quote from The Frozen Grail and Other Poems, by Elsa 
 Barker. 
 
 To Messrs. Henry Holt & Company for selections 
 from Chicago Poems, by Carl Sandburg. 
 
 To the Hough ton Mifflin Company for selections 
 from Poems and Poetic Dramas, by William Vaughn 
 Moody; Complete Poems, by Richard Watson Gilder; 
 Poems, by Florence Earle Coates; The Heart of the 
 Road, by Anna Hempstead Branch; Songs of America 
 and Other Poems, by Edna Dean Proctor; In the High 
 Hills, by Maxwell Struthers Burt; A Brief Pilgrimage 
 in the Holy Land and A Scallop Shell of Quiet, by 
 Caroline Hazard; Happy Ending, by Louise Imogen 
 Guiney; and Songs of Sunrise Lands, by Clinton 
 Scollard. 
 
 To Mr. B. W. Huebsch, publisher, for a selection 
 from The Free Spirit, by Henry Bryan Binns. 
 
 To the Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company for selec 
 tions from Lyrics of Brotherhood, by Richard Burton. 
 
 To Mr. David McKay, publisher, for a selection 
 from Madrigali, by T. A. Daly. 
 
 To Mr. Mitchell Kennerley for selections from The 
 Earth Cry, by Theodosia Garrison; from The Cry of 
 Youth, by Harry Kemp; and from The Jew to Jesus 
 and Other Poems, by Florence Kiper Frank. 
 
 To the Macmillan Company for selections from 
 
Poems, by G. E. Woodberry; from You and I, by 
 Harriet Monroe; from Rivers to the Sea, by Sara Teas- 
 dale; from The Great Valley, by Edgar Lee Masters; and 
 from The Pilgrim Kings, by Thomas Walsh. 
 
 To Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Company for a selec 
 tion from Phidias and Other Poems, by Frank W. Gun- 
 saulus. 
 
 To Mr. Thomas B. Mosher, publisher, for selections 
 from A Wayside Lute, by Lizette Woodworth Reese. 
 
 To Messrs. G. P. Putnam s Sons for selections from 
 Fresh Fields and Legends Old and New, by Sarah J. Day. 
 
 To the Fleming H. Re veil Company for selections 
 from The Empire of Love, by W. J. Dawson. 
 
 To Messrs. Charles Scribner s Sons for selections 
 from The Children of the Night, by Edwin Arlington 
 Robinson; Poems (copyright, 1911, by Charles Scrib 
 ner s Sons), by Henry van Dyke; and Poems, by 
 Sidney Lanier. 
 
 To Messrs. Seymour, Doughaday & Company for 
 selections from Lyrics of a Lad, by Scharmel Iris. 
 
 To Messrs. Sherman, French & Company for selec 
 tions from The Wayside Shrine, by Martha E. Pettus; 
 A Vanished World, by Douglas Duer; The Border of 
 the Lake, by Agnes Lee; and The Beloved Adventure, by 
 John Hall Wheelock. 
 
 To Messrs. Small, Maynard & Company for selec 
 tions from Provenga, by Ezra Pound; and from Poems, 
 by J. B. Tabb. 
 
 To the Stewart & Kidd Company for a selection 
 from The Man Sings (copyright by the Stewart & Kidd 
 Company, 1914), by Roscoe Gilmore Stott. 
 
 To Messrs. Sturgis & Walton for selections from 
 A Little Book of Homespun Verse, by Margaret E. 
 Sangster, 
 
To the John C. Winston Company for a selection 
 from Factories, by Margaret Widdemer. 
 
 To the following periodicals thanks are due for per 
 mission to quote certain poems from their pages: 
 To The Delineator for "The Tears of Mary," by Theo- 
 dosia Garrison; to the American Magazine for "His 
 Playmate," by Harry Kemp; to The Bookman for 
 "On Christmas Day," by Georgia Wood Pangborn; to 
 the Century Magazine for "My Father and I," by 
 Badger Clark, and for "The Blessed Road," by Charles 
 Buxton Going; to The Forum for "The Pharisee," by 
 Dorothy Landers Beall; to Harper s Bazar for "The 
 Twain of Her," by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward; 
 to Richardson Wright, editor of House and Garden, for 
 "Gates and Doors," by Joyce Kilmer, and to the 
 American Poetry Review for "His Laureate," by the 
 same author; to the Frank A. Munsey Company for 
 permission to quote the poem, "Judge Me, O Lord," 
 by Sarah N. Cleghorn, which appeared in Munsey s 
 Magazine; to The Columbiad for permission to use a 
 poem by Joyce Kilmer which appeared in that publica 
 tion; to the editors of Lippincott s Magazine for "The 
 Magi and the Faery Folk," by Edith Thomas; to The 
 Masses for "Comrade Jesus," by Sarah N. Cleghorn; 
 to the New York Evening Post for "The Wooden 
 Christ," by Martha Foote Crow; to The Survey for 
 "The Shadow," by Elizabeth Carter; to the Christian 
 Advocate for "The Nazareth Shop," by Robert Mcln- 
 tyre; and to The Independent for "A Page from Ameri 
 ca s Psalter" and "John," by Willard Wattles. The 
 poem, "The Sepulchre in the Garden," by President 
 John Finley, is used by permission of Harper s Maga 
 zine, copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers. The 
 Outlook gives permission to quote a poem by Robert 
 
Haven Schauffler called "The White Comrade." The 
 author wishes this note to be added: "After W. H. 
 Leathem s The White Comrade." 3 
 
 Among the poets mentioned above many were kind 
 enough to add their permission to that of the publish 
 ers. The gracious response of the following must be 
 here acknowledged: Professor Katharine Lee Bates, 
 Amelia Josephine Burr, Richard Burton, Badger Clark, 
 Sarah N. Cleghorn, Florence Earle Coates, T. A. Daly, 
 Theodosia Garrison, Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus, Ruth 
 Guthrie Harding, Caroline Hazard, Scharmel Iris, Harry 
 Kemp, Joyce Kilmer, Agnes Lee, Richard Le Gallienne, 
 Charles Buxton Going, Mai Elmendorf Lillie, Edwin 
 Markham, Edgar Lee Masters, Harriet Monroe, 
 Josephine Preston Peabody, Martha E. Pettus, Lizette 
 Woodworth Reese, Cale Young Rice, Edwin Arlington 
 Robinson, Carl Sandburg, Robert Haven Schauffler, 
 Clinton Scollard, Sara Teasdale, Edith Thomas, 
 Thomas Walsh, George Edward Woodberry, and 
 Margaret Widdemer. 
 
 Personal acknowledgments are also to be made to 
 the following poets and owners of copyright who have 
 allowed quotation of poems: to Mr. George M. P. 
 Baird for permission to quote a poem called "Mused 
 Mary in Old Age," from Prentice Songs, and "A Ballad 
 of Wise Men," from Rune and Rann\ to Marian Pelton 
 Guild for permission to use "The Prodigal Son," 
 from Semper Plus Ultra; to Mrs. Ella C. Mclntyre for 
 the use of "The Nazareth Shop" and "The Mission 
 aries," by Bishop Robert Mclntyre; to Mrs. Harriet 
 Moody for permission to quote "Second Coming" and 
 "Good Friday Night," by William Vaughn Moody; 
 to May Riley Smith for the use of poems from Some 
 times and Other Poems; to William Ralph Erskine for 
 
"Rabboni," by Barbara Peattie Erskine; to Willard 
 Wattles for permission to select from a number of his 
 poems on this subject which will be gathered by him at 
 some future time into a book; to Rev. Carroll Lund 
 Bates for permission to quote a poem from The Master; 
 to Mr. Herbert D. Ward for the use of "The Twain of 
 Her," by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward; to Richard Le 
 Gallienne for the use of "The Second Crucifixion," 
 from Robert Louis Stevenson and. Other Poems; to 
 Josephine Preston Peabody for "The Fishers," from 
 The Wayfarers; to Richard Burton for "On Syrian 
 Hills," from Memorial Day and Other Poems; to Mar 
 garet Widdemer for "Ballad of Wise Men" and "The 
 Old Road to Paradise"; to Clinton Scollard for poems 
 that have appeared only in privately printed volumes. 
 
 Certain poets have been good enough to send poems 
 in manuscript. Among these Edwina Stanton Babcock 
 sent "Told in the Market Place"; Helen Coale Crew, 
 "The Cedars of Lebanon"; Robert Haven Schauffler, 
 "The White Comrade"; Edith Thomas, "To See the 
 New Baby"; Mai Elmendorf Lillie, " Consolator " ; 
 Harry Lee, "My Master" and "Madness"; and Mary 
 Bowen Brainerd, "The Christ of Raphael s Transfig 
 uration." 
 
 In regard to capitalization, indentation and punctu 
 ation, the precedent of the authors themselves has 
 been followed, using the latest editions where possible. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 That stern prophet, Dr. Josiah Strong, in one of his 
 illuminating treatises refers with a fine inadvertence 
 to "the return to Christ that is now taking place. * 
 This phrase, like a signboard hidden among the shadows 
 of a well-forested pathway, might elude the glance of 
 the passer-by. But when I saw it, the inscription 
 aroused me to eager question. I had been for a long 
 time gathering references to poems about Jesus, just 
 because they had a special interest for me, but with 
 no definite thought of sharing my finds with others. 
 Can it be, I now said, that our poets have all along 
 been singing about the events in the life of Jesus and 
 I have been deaf to them? 
 
 We had always had poets with us, I realized, who 
 had been ranked as pious poets, who had been swept 
 to the empyrean by religious themes only. Such poets 
 gave their whole attention to adoration, praise and 
 prayer. They stood for that. But as for the general 
 run of poets they wrote about love, companionship, 
 the joys of nature, the delight of delight, and very 
 especially, the sadness of sadness. But very rarely 
 was found a poem about Jesus mingled with those 
 on life s general problems, or on the beauty of the 
 
world, or the necessity of enduring bravely the afflic 
 tion of being alive in a world that was felt to be far 
 less than a possible best. God was still sitting in a 
 far away sky and Christ was thought of as something 
 separate from life, as something shut up carefully in a 
 place called a church. 
 
 Then I laid aside my slender sheaf of poems about 
 Jesus, gathered by chance or in idle moments, and be 
 gan to put the question more definitely to proof. First 
 I ran through some fifty volumes of poems of about 
 1890. I found few or no poems about Jesus. Then 
 I plunged in again at 1895 and found but a lonely one 
 here and there. At 1900 there were more, distinctly 
 more. At 1905 there was a still brighter dawn. But 
 when I came to 1910 and thereabouts, times were 
 changed. Something had verily happened. The fas 
 cinating theme of Jesus, the dramatic quality of his 
 human career, the miracle of his personality, had been 
 discovered; and the position of the poem that il 
 luminated some incident in the life of Christ or that 
 enthroned some quality of his character was now 
 securely established in nearly every book of poetry. 
 I discovered two things: that I had not been deaf to 
 the poets earlier singing about Christ, for they had not 
 been singing of Him at all; and also that "the return 
 of Christ" was now being delicately registered by the 
 poets of to-day in poems of varying distinction and 
 with an impulse commensurate with the power of that 
 poetic expression that has lately come upon us and that 
 promises so much for our future. 
 
 And the poems were often of a new kind never seen 
 in books of poetry before. Incidents in his life were 
 
imaginatively reproduced as nearly as possible in the 
 very semblance that they had when He was upon 
 earth, and often with a concreteness that is the gift 
 of the new poetic impulse of our time. 
 
 Of course each poem of this kind must be considered 
 as an. expression of the author s own angle of thought. 
 But if one considers such a group as is here collected, 
 the poems may be thought of as the facets of a dia 
 mond; taken all together they may reflect something 
 like the white light of truth. 
 
 Selecting, then, from the superabundant wealth of 
 poetical material on this theme, written by the poets 
 of the United States of America since about 1900, and 
 arranging them in the order of the events of his life, 
 we have here a sort of new biography of Jesus, each 
 chapter of which consists of a poem written by a dif 
 ferent author, and the whole forming the poetic re 
 action of our time to the thought of Jesus, what He 
 was, what his life meant to the world, and, it may be 
 added in a separate group, what He might yet be to 
 the world if we would but listen to the Voice that still 
 rings in our ears. 
 
 That is, roughly speaking, what has been attempted 
 in this book. Stringing the gems of poetry upon a golden 
 cord of Bible phrases, a poetic biography emerges. 
 Then follows a series of comments representing dif 
 ferent historical eras as our poets have imagined the 
 Good News spreading circle after circle throughout 
 the world. After this the searchlight is cast upon 
 our own times, on our hardness and our deafness, on 
 our refusals and our brutalities, on our dismay of the 
 present moment. Ultimately our poets are gifted to 
 
see a ray of hope. The White Comrade moves along 
 the distracted battle line, the Old Road to Paradise is 
 a travelled way, and after the day of utter havoc, 
 Brotherhood is to spring anew from ruin. 
 
 Beyond the elisions necessary in trying to cram the 
 best of the poetry into small space, but little guidance 
 was required in the selection. I hope no theological bent 
 is discoverable. Jew and Gentile, Protestant, Roman 
 Catholic, Neo-Pagan, Socialist, Emersonian all sorts 
 and conditions of lovers and admirers of Jesus are 
 represented in this collection. The one rule has been 
 only this does the poem represent a true reverence 
 and love? To be entered in this catalog it is not re 
 quired that a poet shall claim that he fully under 
 stands Jesus Christ! 
 
 MARTHA FOOTE CROW. 
 
THE STORY 
 
 OF THE 
 NATIVITY OF JESUS 
 
CHRIST 
 
 IN THE 
 
 POETRY OF TO-DAY 
 
 Thou shall call his name Jesus. 
 
 God whispered and a silence fell; the world 
 
 Poised one expectant moment like a soul 
 Who sees at Heaven s threshold the unfurled 
 White wings of cherubim, the sea impearled, 
 
 And pauses, dazed, to comprehend the whole; 
 Only across all space God s whisper came 
 And burned about her heart like some white flame. 
 
 Then suddenly a bird s note thrilled the peace, 
 And earth again jarred noisily to life 
 
 With a great murmur as of many seas. 
 
 But Mary sat with hands clasped on her knees, 
 And lifted eyes with all amazement rife, 
 
 And in her heart the rapture of the Spring 
 
 Upon its first sweet day of blossoming. 
 
 The Annunciation 
 
 THEODOSIA GARRISON 
 
Let us now go wen unto 
 
 and see this thing that is come to pass. 
 
 little town, little town, 
 
 Upon the hills so far, 
 We see you, like a thing sublime, 
 
 Across the great gray wastes of time, 
 And men go up and men go down, 
 
 But follow still the star! 
 
 And this is humble Bethlehem 
 
 In the Judean wild; 
 And this is lowly Bethlehem 
 
 Wherein a mother smiled; 
 Yea, this is happy Bethlehem 
 
 That knew the little Child! 
 
 Aye, this is glorious Bethlehem 
 Where He drew living breath 
 
 (Ah, precious, precious Bethlehem! 
 So every mortal saith) 
 
 Who brought to all that tread the earth 
 Life s triumph over death! 
 
 little town, little town, 
 
 Upon the hills afar, 
 You call to us, a thing sublime, 
 
 Across the great gray wastes of time, 
 For men go up and men go down, 
 
 But follow still the star! 
 
 The Little Town 
 
 CLINTON SCOLLARD 
 
 4 
 
And there was no room 
 for them in the inn. 
 
 There was a gentle hostler 
 
 (And blessed be his name!) 
 He opened up the stable 
 
 The night Our Lady came. 
 Our Lady and Saint Joseph, 
 
 He gave them food and bed, 
 And Jesus Christ has given him 
 
 A glory round his head. 
 
 So let the gate swing open 
 
 However poor the yard, 
 Lest weary people visit you 
 
 And find their passage barred. 
 Unlatch the door at midnight 
 
 And let your lantern s glow 
 Shine out to guide the traveller s feet 
 
 To you across the snow. 
 
 There was a courteous hostler 
 
 (He is in Heaven to-night!) 
 He held Our Lady s bridle 
 
 And helped her to alight, 
 He spread clean straw before her 
 
 Whereon she might lie down, 
 And Jesus Christ has given him 
 
 An everlasting crown. 
 
" Unlock the door {his evening 
 
 And let the gate swing wide, 
 Let all who ask for shelter 
 
 Come speedily inside. 
 What if your yard be narrow? 
 
 What if your house be small? 
 There is a Guest is coming 
 
 Will glorify it all. 
 
 There was a joyous hostler 
 
 Who knelt on Christmas morn 
 Beside the radiant manger 
 
 Wherein his Lord was born. 
 His heart was full of laughter, 
 
 His soul was full of bliss 
 When Jesus, on His mother s lap, 
 
 Gave him His hand to kiss. 
 
 Unbar your heart this evening 
 
 And keep no stranger out, 
 Take from your soul s great portal 
 
 The barrier of doubt. 
 To humble folk and weary 
 
 Give hearty welcoming, 
 Your breast shall be to-morrow 
 
 The cradle of a King. 
 
 Gates and Doors: A Ballad of Christmas Eve 
 
 JOYCE KILMER 
 6 
 
Ye shall find a babe 
 wrapped in swaddling clothes, 
 and lying in a manger. 
 
 The Ox he openeth wide the Doore 
 
 And from the Snowe he calls her inne, 
 
 And he hath seen her Smile therefor, 
 
 Our Lady without Sinne. 
 
 Now soone from Sleepe 
 
 A Starre shall leap, 
 
 And soone arrive both King and Hinde; 
 
 Amen, Amen: 
 But O, the Place co d I but find! 
 
 The Ox hath hush d his voyce and bent 
 
 Trewe eyes of Pitty ore the Mow, 
 
 And on his lovelie Neck, forspent, 
 
 The Blessed layes her Browe. 
 
 Around her feet 
 
 Full Warm and Sweete 
 
 His Bowerie Breath doth meeklie dwell; 
 
 Amen, Amen: 
 But sore am I with Vaine Travel. 
 
 The Ox is Host in Judah stall, 
 And Host of more than onelie one, 
 For close she gathereth withal 
 Our Lorde, her littel Sonne: 
 
Glad Hinde and King 
 
 Their Gyfte may bring, 
 
 But wo d to-night my Teares were there; 
 
 Amen, Amen: 
 Between her Bosom and His hayre! 
 
 Nativity Song 
 LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY 
 
 My soul doth magnify the Lord. . . 
 for he hath looked upon the low estate 
 of his handmaid. 
 
 On that divine all-hallowed morn 
 When Christ in Bethlehem was born, 
 How lone did Mary seem to be, 
 The kindly beasts for company! 
 
 But when she .saw her infant s face 
 Fair with the soul s unfading grace, 
 Softly she wept for love s excess, 
 For painless ease and happiness. 
 
 She pressed her treasure to her heart 
 
 A lowly mother, set apart 
 
 In the dear way that mothers are, 
 
 And heaven seemed high, and earth afar: 
 
 And when grave kings in sumptuous guise 
 Adored her babe, she knew them wise; 
 For at his touch her sense grew dim 
 
 So all her being worshipped him. 
 
 8 
 
A nimbus seemed to crown the head 
 Low-nestled in that manger-bed, 
 And Mary s forehead, to our sight, 
 Wears ever something of its light; 
 
 And still the heart poor pensioner! 
 In its affliction turns to her 
 Best love of all, best understood, 
 The type of selfless motherhood! 
 
 When Christ Was Born 
 
 FLORENCE EARLE COATES 
 
 The cedars of Lebanon, 
 
 where the birds make their nests. 
 
 Murmured all night in cedar d Lebanon 
 
 The tree-tops odorous sigh; 
 Murmured all night beneath the steadfast stars 
 
 In frosty sky. 
 
 Whisper d the pines O softly! where the hills 
 
 Uplifted to the night, 
 A plaintive dream-song to the snowy earth 
 
 All virgin white. 
 
 Sighed the tall cedars; fragrant balsams wept; 
 
 The firs and hemlocks moaned; 
 While through their tremulous tops the sweeping winds 
 
 Their hymns intoned. 
 
 9 
 
Think you the green trees slept while Mary grieved 
 
 In pain and travail sore? 
 Nay, night-long they watched with her, till at dawn 
 
 Her babe she bore. 
 
 The Cedars of Lebanon 
 
 HELEN COALE CREW 
 
 And they came with haste, 
 
 and found the babe lying in the manger. 
 
 The Little Jesus came to town; 
 The wind blew up, the wind blew down; 
 Out in the street the wind was bold; 
 Now who would house Him from the cold? 
 
 Then opened wide a stable door, 
 Fair were the rushes on the floor; 
 The Ox put forth a horned head; 
 "Come, little Lord, here make Thy bed." 
 
 Uprose the Sheep were folded near; 
 "Thou Lamb of God, come, enter here." 
 He entered there to rush and reed, 
 Who was the Lamb of God indeed. 
 
 The little Jesus came to town; 
 With ox and sheep He laid Him down; 
 Peace to the byre, peace to the fold, 
 For that they housed Him from the cold! 
 
 A Christmas Folk-Song 
 
 LlZETTE WOODWORTH REESE 
 10 
 
Good tidings of great joy 
 which shall be to all the people. 
 
 Two little angel-sisters, 
 
 Just called from earth away 
 What brings them back from Heaven, 
 
 At dawning of The Day? 
 Two little Bethlehem sisters 
 
 They had a childish way: 
 Where er was a new baby, 
 
 There, too, full soon were they! 
 
 One might have seen them running 
 Along old Bethlehem street . . . 
 
 "Oh, let us see the baby- 
 How sweet it is how sweet! 
 
 And let us touch its hands, 
 And let us kiss its feet." 
 
 One might have heard them talking 
 To every one they meet. 
 
 When came this Blessed Baby 
 
 They followed Him below . . . 
 Their wings are in the shadow, 
 
 Their faces all aglow 
 Save for those wings half-hidden, 
 
 I own, I should not know 
 But they were Bethlehem children, 
 
 That just love babies so! 
 
 To See the New Baby 
 (to accompany the picture of the 
 Nativity by Gherardo delle Notte) 
 
 EDITH M. THOMAS 
 11 
 
Fear not, Mary: for thou 
 hast found favor with God. 
 
 Joseph, the simple tradesman, sat near by, 
 Awed by his wonder, stilled by sympathy; 
 Vaguely he mused on what his eyes had seen, 
 Or pondered slowly what the morn might mean. 
 Mary slept on that first blest mother-sleep; 
 He watched alone; the night was growing deep. 
 Amazed he marked new glory flood her face; 
 Her eyes were closed, but from her lowly place 
 She called his name, as one who dreams a dream. 
 And as he came, her face did strangely gleam. 
 Her arms lay open, and with knowing glance, 
 He knew he heard her speaking in a trance. 
 
 "Look, Joseph, on my Babe He is a King! 
 Come near and touch my hand; I hear the ring 
 Of wondrous anthems bursting from the sky; 
 I am bewildered and I know not why. 
 Look, sleeps He well? Ah, Joseph, bear with me 
 In loving patience as thou hast, for we 
 Joseph, they sing again! Hear ye the choir? 
 Their faces shine as with a sacred fire. 
 They hover near us O, a mighty throng 
 Are singing for my Babe His natal-song! 
 Before His star a thousand stars take flight 
 Who placed it there, that wondrous, holy Light? 
 My joy dear Joseph, can I bear it all? 
 
 My joy! Ah, see around me fall 
 12 
 
The dismal shadows of a distant cross! 
 My fathers God, is all this gain or loss?" 
 
 And Joseph for he could not understand 
 Knelt by her side and, wond ring, kissed her hand. 
 
 Joseph and Mary 
 ROSCOE OILMAN STOTT 
 
 And there were shepherds in the same country, 
 keeping watch by night over their Hock 
 
 First Shepherd, a youth: 
 
 I saw a wonder as I came along: 
 Out of the sky there dropped a shining song. 
 I do not know if stars in heaven have wings; 
 But look, and listen! there it soars and sings. 
 
 Second Shepherd, an old man: 
 
 My eyes are dazzled for the light is strong. 
 
 The Angel: 
 
 I bring good tidings, snepherds, have no fear: 
 The Saviour of the whole world is come near. 
 A child is born to-night in Bethlehem 
 Who brings great joy to all, and most to them 
 Who are most poor. The King! The King is here ! 
 
 First Shepherd: 
 
 Where is his palace? Can we find the way? 
 Second Shepherd: 
 
 We have had kings enough. Must we go pay 
 
 More taxes to a new one? 
 13 
 
The Angel: 
 
 Come and bring 
 The love of simple hearts unto this king. 
 
 Third Shepherd, a man of middle age: 
 I could bring only tears where a child lay. 
 
 First Shepherd (aside} : 
 
 Why can he not forget his year-old pain? 
 
 Second Shepherd (aside): 
 Hearts that break slowly will not heal again. 
 
 The Angel: 
 
 Good-will, good-will, and peace to all the earth 
 Born in a cattle stable, lo! his birth 
 Is holy. King of Love, he comes to reign. 
 
 Third Shepherd: 
 
 When harvests fail, and all the sheep are dead, 
 And little children cry and cry for bread, 
 Grow tired at last, and sicken and lie still, 
 Will any sing of peace there and good-will 
 To us who watch beside an empty bed? 
 
 First Shepherd: 
 
 I think that when the King of Love is grown, 
 And hearts of men are loving like his own, 
 He who has gold will with his brother share; 
 There will be bread and wine and fire to spare; 
 For who can love, yet sit and feast alone? 
 
 Second Shepherd: 
 Quick, let us go! These dim old eyes would see 
 
 A king who comes in peace and poverty. 
 14 
 
First Shepherd: 
 
 I see a hundred white stars drifting down; 
 
 They circle yonder over Bethlehem town. 
 Chorus of Angels: 
 
 Glory to God! Good- will to men shall be 
 
 The Shepherds 
 
 SOPHIE JEWETT 
 
 We saw his star in the east. 
 
 Softly I come into the dance of the spheres 
 Into the choir of lights, 
 
 New from my nest in God s heart. 
 O Night, the chosen of nights, 
 Longing and dream of the years, 
 Blessed thou art! 
 
 Golden the fruit hangs on the hyaline tree; 
 Golden the glistening tide 
 
 Sweeps through the heavens; the cars 
 Of the great mooned planets glide 
 Golden; and yet to me 
 Bow down the stars; 
 
 Casting their crowns, bright with seonian reigns. 
 Under the flight of my feet 
 
 Eager for Bethlehem, 
 Thither with music-beat 
 Blent of innumerous strains 
 Marshalling them. 
 
 15 
 
Sweetly their chant soars through unsearchable space, 
 Quivering vespers that thrill 
 
 Into the deep nocturne, 
 Symphony I fulfill, 
 I who like Mary s face 
 Wonder and yearn, 
 
 Cherish, adore, keeping the watch above 
 The Word made flesh to-night, 
 
 Wonderful Word impearled 
 In childhood holy-white, 
 Word that is Godhood, Love, 
 Light of the World. 
 
 The Star of Bethlehem 
 
 KATHARINE LEE BATES 
 
 And lo, the star, which they saw 
 in the east, went before them. 
 
 I 
 
 The Kings of the East are riding 
 
 To-night to Bethlehem. 
 The sunset glows dividing, 
 The Kings of the East are riding; 
 A star their journey guiding, 
 
 Gleaming with gold and gem 
 The Kings of the East are riding 
 
 To-night to Bethlehem. 
 
 16 
 
II 
 
 To a strange sweet harp of Zion 
 
 The starry host troops forth; 
 The golden-glaived Orion 
 To a strange sweet harp of Zion; 
 The Archer and the Lion, 
 
 The Watcher of the North; 
 To a strange sweet harp of Zion 
 
 The starry host sweeps forth. 
 
 Ill 
 
 There beams above a manger 
 
 The child-face of a star; 
 Amid the stars a stranger, 
 It beams above a manger; 
 What means this ether-ranger 
 
 To pause where poor folk are? 
 There beams above a manger 
 
 The child-face of a star. 
 
 The Kings of the East 
 
 KATHARINE LEE BATES 
 
 The star came and stood over 
 where the young child was. 
 
 The day the Christ-child s tender eyes 
 Unveiled their beauty on the earth, 
 
 God lit a new star in the skies 
 To flash the message of his birth; 
 
 And wise men read the glowing sign, 
 
 And came to greet the Child divine. 
 17 
 
Low kneeling in the stable s gloom, 
 Their precious treasures they unrolled; 
 
 The place was rich with sweet perfume; 
 Upon the floor lay gifts of gold. 
 
 And thus adoring they did bring 
 
 To Christ the earliest offering. 
 
 I think no nimbus wreathed the head 
 Of the young King so rudely throned; 
 
 The quilt of hay beneath Him spread 
 The sleepy kine beside Him owned; 
 
 And here and there in the torn thatch 
 
 The sky thrust in a starry patch. 
 
 Oh, when was new-born monarch shrined 
 
 Within such canopy as this? 
 The birds have cradles feather lined; 
 
 And for their new babes princesses 
 Have sheets of lace without a flaw, 
 His pillow was a wisp of straw! 
 
 He chose this way, it may have been, 
 That those poor mothers, everywhere, 
 
 Whose babies in the world s great inn 
 Find scanty cradle-room and fare, 
 
 As did the babe of Bethlehem, 
 
 May find somewhat to comfort them. 
 
 His Birthday 
 MAY RILEY SMITH 
 
 18 
 
And his name shall be called 
 Prince of Peace. 
 
 The Christ-Child lay in Bethlehem, 
 
 And the Wise Men gave Him gold, 
 And Mary-Mother she hearkened them 
 
 As they prayed in the cattle-fold: 
 "Smile, then smile, little Prince of Earth, 
 
 Smile in Thy holy sleep; 
 Now Thou art come, for want and dearth 
 There shall be plenty and light and mirth 
 
 Through lands where the poor folk weep." 
 
 But Mary-Mother was still and pale 
 And she raised her gold-ringed head: 
 
 "Then why have I heard the children wail 
 
 All night long on the far-blown gale 
 While my own Child slept?" she said. 
 
 (But far over head the angels sang; 
 
 " There shall be peace!" the far notes rang.) 
 
 The Christ-Child lay in Bethlehem 
 And the censers burned for Him 
 
 That the Wise Men swung on a silver stem, 
 And prayed while the smoke rose dim: 
 
 "Sleep, then sleep, little Son of God, 
 Sleep while the whole world prays: 
 
 All of the world shall fear thy nod, 
 
 Following close thy staff and rod 
 
 Praising this day of days." 
 19 
 
But Mary-Mother turned whispering 
 
 There by the manger-bed: 
 "Then why do I hear a mocking ring 
 Of voices crying and questioning 
 
 Through the scented smoke?" she said. 
 (But high over head the angels sang; 
 " There shall be faith!" the sweet notes rang.) 
 
 The Christ-Child lay in Bethlehem 
 
 And the Wise Men gave Him myrrh 
 And Mary-Mother she hearkened them 
 
 As they prayed by the heart of her; 
 "Hush, then hush, little Prince of Peace, 
 
 Hush, take Thy holy rest; 
 Now Thou art come all wars shall cease, 
 Thou who hast brought all strife release 
 
 Even from East to West!" 
 
 But Mary-Motner she veiled her head 
 
 As if her great joys were lost: 
 And "Here is only a manger-bed, 
 Then why do I hear clashed swords?" she said, 
 "And why do I see a tide of red 
 
 Over the whole world tossed?" 
 (But still over all the angels sang: 
 "There shall be peace! 9 the high notes rang!) 
 
 A Ballad of the Wise Men 
 
 MARGARET WIDDEMER 
 20 
 
And opening their treasures 
 they offered unto him gifts. 
 
 I am Balthazar, sovereign where the Nile 
 Winds over Egypt by the palms and sands, 
 Temples and sphinxes waiting Thy commands 
 
 Adown the ages in a deathless smile. 
 
 Thee would our priests with fire and bloodshed style 
 A "God of Terrors," yet the mummies hands 
 Held fast the scarab so that shadow-lands 
 
 Of death might know Thou didst but bide the while! 
 
 Thus for Thy Kingship did I snatch the gold 
 From grim Osiris brow, that night the Star 
 
 For which Chaldea s sages pined of old 
 
 Proclaimed Thy birth; and trusting in the sign, 
 
 Come I to seek Thee on the hills afar, 
 To yield Fear s broken sovereignty to Thine! 
 
 Behold me Gaspar of the Isles of Greece 
 Before Thy feet anointed! Thou didst call 
 Our souls to dream of Thee by waterfall 
 
 And snow-strewn mount and purple vale of peace. 
 
 Out where our sea-flocks comb their silver fleece 
 Against a thousand isles marmoreal 
 We raised to Thee our temple columns tall 
 
 Where sacrifice and psean should not cease. 
 
 What though the Phidian stone or ivory heard 
 The cry our barren hearts sent up to Thee, 
 
 Yet did we treasure every Delphic word 
 
 21 
 
And ply the sibyls in Thine augury. 
 Such was our homage till yon pure Star stirred 
 Before me bearing incense o er the sea. 
 
 They crowned me Melchior where the Ganges rolls 
 By gilded shrines and cities to the sea, 
 There where the death-pyres burn eternally 
 
 And saints and sages lacerate their souls. 
 
 Through scorn of love and hate their will controls 
 Earth s rebel senses; naught of worth can be 
 Save full absorption in the life of Thee, 
 
 Their Lamp consuming o er the deeps and shoals. 
 
 Thou dost confound the dreaming of our seers, 
 Thou who in human guise, not flame, wouldst bring 
 
 Our world Thy message of its precious tears, 
 Its humblest service angel-winged with thought. 
 
 So hither unto Thee, O Saviour, King, 
 
 And Brother, lo, the myrrh adoring brought! 
 
 At the Manger s Side 
 
 THOMAS WALSH 
 
 He that will, let him take 
 the water of life freely. 
 
 When that our gentle Lord was born 
 
 And cradled in the hay 
 
 There rode three wise men from the east- 
 
 22 
 
Three rich wise men were they 
 All in the starry night they came 
 Their homage gifts to pay. 
 
 They got them down from camel-back, 
 
 The cattle shed before, 
 
 And in the darkness vainly sought 
 
 A great latch on the door, 
 
 "Ho! this is strange," quoth Balthazar, 
 
 "Aye, strange," quoth Melchior. 
 
 Quoth Caspar, "I can find no hasp; 
 Well hidden is the lock"; 
 "The door," quoth Melchior, "is stout 
 And fast, our skill to mock"; 
 Quoth Balthazar, "The little King 
 Might wake, we dare not knock." 
 
 The three wise men they sat them down 
 To wait for morning dawn, 
 The cunning wards of that old door 
 They thought and marvelled on; 
 Quoth they, "No gate in all the East 
 Hath bar-bolts tighter drawn." 
 
 Anon there came a little lad 
 With lambskins for the King, 
 He had no key, he raised no latch, 
 He touched no hidden spring, 
 But gently pushed the silent door 
 And open it gan swing. 
 
 23 
 
"A miracle! a miracle!" 
 
 Cried out the wise men three; 
 
 "A little child hath solved the locks 
 
 That could not opened be." 
 
 In wonder spake the shepherd lad, 
 
 "It hath no locks," quoth he. 
 
 A Ballad of Wise Men 
 
 GEORGE M. P. BAIRD 
 
 That in the ages to come he might show 
 the exceeding riches of his grace. 
 
 Where went the gifts the Magi bore 
 
 To Bethlehem Village long of yore? 
 
 As they rode all night through the haunting sands, 
 
 There were whispering voices and touching hands: 
 
 "Give us of that which your panniers hold!" 
 
 Then they who rode to each other spoke: 
 
 "They have followed us forth because of our gold 
 
 The eager clan of the Faery Folk!" 
 
 And the Magi answered those voices in air: 
 "The gifts we carry we may not share. 
 The myrrh and the gems and the gold from the mine 
 These are all for One for a Child Divine." 
 Oh, then, how the silver laughters ran 
 Till they made to quiver the Guiding Star: 
 "We will visit, ourselves, this Child of Man, 
 We will ask of Him when ye re passed afar! 
 
 24 
 
"All that He hath He will give away 
 
 In the hands of the world a treasure will lay, 
 
 Treasure so vast, so more than gold, 
 
 That the hands of the world will scarcely hold 
 
 All that He hath for them in store: 
 
 We have no souls, that treasure to share; 
 
 He will give us the lesser the glittering ore!" 
 
 Laughed the Faery Folk, unseen in air. 
 
 Thus, with the touch of asking hands, 
 The Magi rode through the haunted sands 
 And silently followed their Guiding Star. 
 They gave their gifts, and they passed afar. 
 If any came after, there s none to tell, 
 And where went their gold is none to say. 
 But this of a truth we know full well: 
 "All that He hath He will give away." 
 
 The Magi and the Faery Folk 
 
 EDITH M. THOMAS 
 
 And the power of the Most High 
 shall overshadow thee. 
 
 Methinks the Blessed was content, her journey over 
 past, 
 
 Amid the drowsy, wondering kine on lowly bed to lie: 
 
 To dream in pensive thankfulness, and happy days 
 forecast, 
 
 While over her the Star of Hope waxed brighter in 
 
 the sky. 
 
 25 
 
And yet, methinks in Bethlehem her spirit had been 
 
 lone 
 But for the tender new-born joy that in her arms she 
 
 bore, 
 Ay, even though with gifts of gold and many a precious 
 
 stone 
 Great kings had knelt with shepherd folk about her 
 
 stable door. 
 
 But every mortal mother s heart knows its Gethsem- 
 
 ane 
 That lonelier spot whereto no star the light of hope 
 
 may bring 
 
 Yet even in the darkest hour, amidst her agony, 
 Each still remembers Bethlehem, and hears the angels 
 sing. 
 
 Mother Mary 
 FLORENCE EARLE COATES 
 
 But there were standing by the cross 
 of Jesus his mother and . 
 
 Melchior, Gaspar, Balthazar, 
 Great gifts they bore and meet; 
 
 White linen for His body fair 
 And purple for His feet; 
 
 And golden things the joy of kings 
 
 And myrrh to breathe Him sweet. 
 26 
 
It was the shepherd Terish spake, 
 
 "Oh, poor the gift I bring 
 A little cross of broken twigs, 
 
 A hind s gift to a king 
 Yet, haply, He may smile to see 
 
 And know my offering." 
 
 And it was Mary held her Son 
 
 Full softly to her breast, 
 "Great gifts and sweet are at Thy feet 
 
 And wonders king-possessed, 
 O little Son, take Thou the one 
 
 That pleasures Thee the best." 
 
 It was the Christ-Child in her arms 
 Who turned from gaud and gold, 
 
 Who turned from wondrous gifts and great, 
 From purple woof and fold, 
 
 And to His breast the cross He pressed 
 That scarce His hands could hold. 
 
 Twas king and shepherd went their way 
 
 Great wonder tore their bliss; 
 Twas Mary clasped her little Son 
 
 Close, close to feel her kiss, 
 And in His hold the cross lay cold 
 
 Between her heart and His! 
 
 The Ballad of the Cross 
 
 THEODOSIA GARRISON 
 
 27 
 
And a sword shall pierce through thine own soul; 
 that thoughts out of many hearts shall be revealed. 
 
 Vines branching stilly 
 Shade the open door, 
 In the house of Zion s Lily 
 Cleanly and poor. 
 Oh, brighter than wild laurel 
 The Babe bounds in her hand, 
 The King, who for apparel 
 Hath but a swaddling band, 
 
 And sees her heavenlier smiling than stars in His 
 command ! 
 
 Soon, mystic changes 
 Part Him from her breast, 
 Yet there awhile He ranges 
 .Gardens of rest: 
 Yea, she the first to ponder 
 Our ransom and recall, 
 Awhile may rock Him under 
 Her young curls fall, 
 Against that only sinless love-loyal heart of all. 
 
 What shall inure Him 
 
 Unto the deadly dream, 
 
 When the tetrarch shall abjure Him, 
 
 The thief blaspheme, 
 
 And scribe and soldier jostle 
 
 About the shameful tree, 
 28 
 
And even an Apostle 
 Demand to touch and see? 
 
 But she hath kissed her Flower where the Wounds 
 are to be. 
 
 Nativity Song 
 LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY 
 
 Behold, this child is set 
 for a sign. 
 
 "Nay, but He is so helpless and so sweet. 
 
 Why, it is nothing more than if I pressed 
 
 An armful of white roses to my breast, 
 
 That only stir above my own heart s beat. 
 
 Why should a dream I dreamed destroy my rest? 19 
 
 Yet even as she spake she felt the stir 
 
 Of wings that in the garden passed by her. 
 
 "He is so small, so weak against my heart, 
 A little wounded dove were strong as He. 
 He hath no other need than need of me, 
 Nor any life from my own life apart. 
 Why should I dread an olden prophecy?" 
 Yet even as she spake, she felt, like flame, 
 The voice that in the garden said her name. 
 
 "As lesser mothers are, am I not blest? 
 He is no other s but mine own, mine own, 
 No King, no Prophet, but my child alone. 
 
 29 
 
Asking no other kingdom than my breast. 
 Let me be glad those foolish fears are done." 
 Yet even as she spake He stirred in her embrace, 
 Feeling her tears, her tears upon His face. 
 
 The Tears of Mary 
 
 THEODOSIA GARRISON 
 
 Fear not, Mary: of his kingdom 
 there shall be no end! 
 
 O Mary, in thy clear young eyes 
 What sorrow came at His first cry? 
 What hint of how He was to die 
 
 Disturbed thee in the calm sunrise . . . 
 What shadow from the paling sky 
 
 Did fall across thy Paradise? 
 
 Dream st thou the Garden, and the Tree? 
 Know they were for the little Child 
 Whose lips against thy warm breast smiled? 
 
 So sweet, that body close to thee, 
 By men s rough hands to be defiled; 
 
 So frail . . . yet waiting Calvary! 
 
 Stanzas from "The Madonna of the Carpenter Shop" 
 
 (Dagnan-Bougeret) 
 
 RUTH GUTHRIE HARDING 
 
 30 
 
Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same 
 is my brother, and sister, and mother. 
 
 Three women meet beneath the Tree of Knowledge in Para 
 dise; one has given up her birthright of motherhood that 
 she might give her life entirely to the work of healing; the 
 second has found her children in her songs; the third has 
 never been sought, and has had to content herself with 
 caring for the neglected children of others. 
 
 And then, on still, unhasting feet 
 One came to them with greeting brief. 
 Her smile so patient and so sweet 
 Was sadder than a rain of grief, 
 And as they looked into her eyes 
 Such silence fell upon the three 
 They heard the songs of Paradise 
 Beneath the Knowledge Tree. 
 "And I" she said "a child I bore 
 A child I could not understand. 
 I watched Him wander more and more 
 Beyond the limits of my land. 
 His love was never less toward me, 
 But He was All, and I but one. 
 He passed unto Humanity, 
 And was no more my son." 
 
 The Childless 
 
 AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 
 
 31 
 
And his father and mother were marveling 
 
 at the things which were spoken concerning him. 
 
 After the Wise Men went, and the strange star 
 Had faded out, Joseph the father sat 
 Watching the sleeping Mother and the Babe, 
 And thinking stern, sweet thoughts the long night 
 through. 
 
 "Ah, what am I, that God has chosen me 
 To bear this blessed burden, to endure 
 Daily the presence of this loveliness, 
 To guide this Glory that shall guide the world? 
 
 "Brawny these arms to win Him bread, and broad 
 This bosom to sustain Her. But my heart 
 Quivers in lonely pain before that Beauty 
 It loves and serves and cannot understand!" 
 
 The Vigil of Joseph 
 
 ELSA BARKER 
 
THE YOUTH OF JESUS 
 
He led them also by a straight way, 
 that they might go to a city of habitation. 
 
 Thou wayfaring Jesus, a pilgrim and stranger, 
 
 Exiled from Heaven by love at Thy birth, 
 Exiled again from Thy rest in the manger, 
 
 A fugitive child mid the perils of earth, 
 Cheer with Thy fellowship all who are weary, 
 
 Wandering far from the land that they love; 
 Guide every heart that is homeless and dreary, 
 
 Safe to its home in Thy presence above. 
 
 The Flight into Egypt 
 
 HENRY VAN DYKE 
 
 And Joseph arose and took the young child 
 and his mother and fled into Egypt. 
 
 The mighty river flows as when Thine eyes 
 Thy baby eyes, in wonder saw it flow. 
 The Pyramids stand there; no one may know 
 
 Their countless years, or ancient builders wise; 
 
 Thy childish gaze was caught in glad surprise 
 To see the haughty camels come and go; 
 
 The ass thy mother rode still ambles slow; 
 35 
 
Unmoved by centuries the country lies. 
 
 Up from the calm, the peace, the mystic land, 
 Back to the scene of conflict and of strife, 
 Thy parents journeyed at the Lord s command. 
 
 A touch of glory rests upon the place 
 
 Which gave its shelter to Thine infant grace, 
 And nourished Thee to be the Life of Life. 
 
 Out of Egypt Have I Called My Son 
 
 CAROLINE HAZARD 
 
 And the grace of God was upon him. 
 
 Could every time-worn heart but see Thee once again 
 A happy human child, among the homes of men, 
 The age of doubt would pass, the vision of Thy face 
 Would silently restore the childhood of the race. 
 
 The Nativity 
 
 HENRY VAN DYKE 
 
 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
 
 through the prophets, that he should be called a Nazarene. 
 
 In Nazareth, upon its southern slope 
 Of springtime hillside, lying in the sun 
 With fresh grass from the winter hardly won 
 
 And blossoms that begin with joy to ope 
 
 36 
 
The lily of the field, in heliotrope 
 
 And splendid crimson, such as Solomon 
 In glory had not the Angelic One 
 
 Brought all to life, with those great words of hope. 
 
 And from the crest of that fair mountain town 
 Far to the north, the height the Prophet sings, 
 The dome of dazzling snow, the country s crown, 
 
 The splendid majesty of Hermon lies, 
 The joy of His forefather David s eyes, 
 White as the herald angel s radiant wings. 
 
 Nazareth 
 
 CAROLINE HAZARD 
 
 And the life was the light of men. 
 
 A woman sings across the wild 
 A song of wonder sweet, 
 And everywhere her little Child 
 Follows her gliding feet. 
 
 He flutters like a petal white 
 Along the roadway s rim; 
 When He is tired, at latter-light, 
 His mother carries Him. 
 
 Sometimes a little silver star 
 
 Floats softly down the air, 
 
 Past mountains where the pure snows are, 
 
 And sits upon His hair. 
 37 
 
Sometimes, when darkness is unfurled, 
 Upon her breast He lies, 
 And all the dreams of all the world 
 Flock to His dreamy eyes. 
 
 The Christ-Child 
 
 AGNES LEE 
 
 One of these little ones. 
 
 And have you seen my little Son 
 
 A-passing by to-day? 
 A butterfly with golden wings 
 
 Has lured Him far away. 
 
 Oh, you would know Him by His eyes; 
 
 Twin pools of twilight sweet, 
 Oh, you would know Him by His smile, 
 
 And by His little feet. 
 
 And if you find Him, give Him drink, 
 
 And give Him of your bread, 
 And mother Him upon your breast, 
 
 And stroke His weary head; 
 
 And should a thorn have bruised His hand, 
 
 I beg you, wash the stain; 
 And oh, pray lead Him to my hearth, 
 
 And to my arms again. 
 38 
 
For I would place Him in my bed, 
 And close His tender eyes, 
 
 And lay my heart anear His heart, 
 And dream of Paradise. 
 
 Mary s Quest 
 
 SCHARMEL IRIS 
 
 And he took them in his arms and blessed them. 
 
 Where has He gone, our Playmate? 
 
 We ve sought Him high and low 
 Where gray-green olives ripen, 
 
 Where haycocks stand a-row. . . . 
 
 W T e saw Him passing down the street 
 An hour or so ago! 
 
 Where has He gone, our Comrade 
 
 Who took us by the hand 
 And taught us to build houses 
 
 With little heaps of sand? 
 
 He has gone forth to sojourn 
 In a far foreign land! 
 
 Nay, but He would not leave us 
 Who took us on His knee, 
 
 39 
 
And set our fancies sailing 
 Like ships upon the sea. . . . 
 
 We think that He will never come 
 Again to Galilee! 
 
 The Playmate 
 
 HARRY KEMP 
 
 And his name shall be called Counsellor. 
 
 A little Child, a Joy-of-heart, with eyes 
 Unsearchable, he grew in Nazareth, 
 
 His daily speech so innocently wise 
 
 That all the town went telling: "Jesus saith." 
 
 At Nazareth 
 
 KATHARINE LEE BATES 
 
 As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, 
 so Jehovah is round about his people! 
 
 I stood by the Holy City 
 
 Without the Damascus Gate, 
 While the wind blew soft from the distant sea, 
 
 And the day was wearing late, 
 And swept its wide horizon 
 
 With reverent lingering gaze 
 From the rolling uplands of the west 
 
 That slope a hundred ways, 
 40 
 
To Olivet s gray terraces 
 
 By Kedron s bed that rise, 
 Upon whose crest the Crucified 
 
 Was lost to mortal eyes; 
 And, far beyond, to the tawny line 
 
 Where the sun seemed still to fall 
 So bright the hue against the blue, 
 
 Of Moab s mountain wall; 
 And north to the hills of Benjamin, 
 
 Whose springs are flowing yet, 
 Ramah, and sacred Mizpah, 
 Its dome above them set; 
 And the beautiful words of the Psalmist 
 
 Had meaning before unknown: 
 As the mountains round Jerusalem 
 
 The Lord is round His own. 
 
 At Jerusalem 
 
 EDNA DEAN PROCTOR 
 
 They found him in the temple, 
 sitting in the midst of the teachers, 
 asking them questions. 
 
 The young child, Christ, is straight and wise 
 And asks questions of the old men, questions 
 Found under running water for all children, 
 And found under shadows thrown on still waters 
 By tall trees looking downwards, old and gnarled, 
 Found to the eyes of children alone, untold, 
 
 41 
 
Singing a low song in the loneliness. 
 
 And the young child, Christ, goes asking 
 
 And the old men answer nothing and only know love 
 
 For the young child, Christ, straight and wise. 
 
 Child 
 
 CARL SANDBURG 
 
 Knew ye not that I must be 
 in my Father s house? 
 
 What is it forces men to overrun 
 
 Their safe and common paths, to meet the frown 
 Of those they reverence, jeered by every clown, 
 
 Knowing no rest till some strange task is done, 
 
 Some luring secret from the darkness won? 
 What is it makes life, love, and fair renown 
 As naught its far-off prize the martyr s crown? 
 
 Tis God s great business, claiming thus His son. 
 
 So was it with the Boy Divine. Apart 
 
 From those calm travellers on their homeward way, 
 
 He needs must utter from His questioning heart 
 The burden that already on it lay; 
 
 And she who gently drew Him from the spot 
 
 Trembled, methinks, at that presaging "Wist ye not?" 
 
 My Father s Business 
 
 SARAH J. DAY 
 42 
 
So many kinds of voices in the world . . . 
 Christ reconciling the world unto himself. 
 
 Little town of Nazareth 
 On the hillsides Galilean, 
 Oh, your name is like a poean 
 
 Rising over dole and death! 
 
 I can see your domes and towers 
 Dazzle underneath the noon, 
 
 And your drowsy poppy-flowers 
 In the breezes sway and swoon. 
 
 I can see your olives quiver 
 With their opalescent sheen, 
 
 Like the ripples of a river 
 
 Gliding grassy banks between. 
 
 I can see your graceful daughters 
 Poise their slim-necked drinking-jars, 
 
 With their hair like twilight waters, 
 And their eyes like Syrian stars. 
 
 I can see your narrow byways 
 Where the folk go sandal-shod, 
 
 All your dim bazaars and highways, 
 Every path that once He trod. 
 
 And I know that waking, sleeping, 
 
 Until time has ceased to be, 
 You will hold fast in your keeping 
 
 His beloved memory! 
 43 
 
Little town of Nazareth 
 On the hillsides Galilean, 
 Oh, your name is like a pcean 
 
 Rising over dole and death! 
 
 Easter at Nazareth 
 
 CLINTON SCOLLARD 
 
 And he was subject unto them. 
 
 So sweetly through that humble home 
 The rippling laughter went 
 
 That Mary felt the world s blue dome 
 Too small for her content. 
 
 And careful Joseph, while he held 
 
 The boy in grave caress, 
 Wist not what tender thrill dispelled 
 
 His workday weariness. 
 
 The crown set softly, only rings 
 
 Of baby hair agleam 
 With lustres dropt from angels wings 
 
 And starlight down a dream. 
 
 The thorn-tree was a seedling still, 
 And with laughter s frolic chime 
 The Christ-child did his father s will, 
 
 As when, of elder time, 
 44 
 
A ruddy lad in Bethlehem 
 
 Was keeping sheep and played 
 
 Blithe music on his harp to them 
 Before the psalms were made. 
 
 Murillo s "Holy Family of the Little Bird" 
 
 KATHARINE LEE BATES 
 
 And Jesus advanced 
 in wisdom and stature. 
 
 I know, Lord, Thou hast sent Him 
 Thou art so good to me! 
 But Thou hast only lent Him, 
 His heart s for Thee! 
 
 I dared Thy poor handmaiden 
 Not ask a prophet-child: 
 Only a boy-babe laden 
 For earth and mild. 
 
 But this one Thou hast given 
 Seems not for earth or me! 
 His lips flame truth from heaven, 
 And vanity 
 
 Seem all my thoughts and prayers 
 When He but speaks Thy law; 
 Out of my heart the tares 
 Are torn by awe! 
 
 45 
 
I cannot look upon Him, 
 So strangely burn His eyes 
 Hath not some grieving drawn Him 
 From Paradise? 
 
 For Thee, for Thee I d live, Lord! 
 Yet oft I almost fall 
 Before Him Oh, forgive, Lord, 
 My sinful thrall! 
 
 But e en when He was nursing, 
 A baby at my breast, 
 It seemed He was dispersing 
 The world s unrest. 
 
 Thou badst me call Him "Jesus," 
 And from our heavy sin 
 I know He shall release us, 
 From Sheol win. 
 
 But, Lord, forgive! the yearning 
 That He may sometimes be 
 Like other children, learning 
 Beside my knee, 
 
 Or playing, prattling, seeking 
 For help comes to my heart . . . 
 Oh sinful, Lord, I m speaking- 
 How good Thou art! 
 
 Mary at Nazareth 
 
 GALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 46 
 
And the government shall be 
 upon his shoulder. 
 
 When, for the last time from His mother s home 
 
 The Son went forth, foreseeing perfectly 
 What doom would happen, and what things would 
 
 come, 
 
 Was there upon His lips no stifled sigh 
 For happy hours that should return no more, 
 
 Long days among the lilies, pure delights 
 Of wanderings by Galilee s fair shore, 
 
 And converse with His friends on starry nights? 
 Yet brave He stepped into the setting sun 
 With this one word, "Father, Thy will be 
 done!" 
 
 With a low voice the stooping olive trees 
 
 Whispered to Him of His Gethsemane; 
 The cruel thorn-bush, clinging to His knees, 
 
 Proclaimed, "I shall be made a crown for Thee!" 
 And, looking back, His eyes made dim with loss, 
 
 He saw the lintel of the cottage grow 
 In shape against the sunset, like a cross, 
 
 And knew He had not very far to go. 
 
 Yet brave He stepped into the setting sun, 
 Still saying this one word, "Thy will be done!" 
 
 So, when the last time, from His mother s home 
 The Son passed out, no choir of angels came, 
 
 As long before at Bethlehem they had come, 
 To comfort Him upon the road of shame. 
 
 47 
 
Alone He went, and stopped a little space, 
 
 As one o erburdened, stopped to look again 
 Upon His mother s pleading form and face, 
 
 And wept for her, that she should know this pain. 
 Then, silently, He faced the setting sun, 
 And said, "Oh, Father, let Thy will be done!" 
 
 Mother and Son 
 
 W. J. DAWSON 
 
 For even his brethren 
 did not believe on him. 
 
 Joses, the brother of Jesus, plodded from day to day 
 With never a vision within him to glorify his clay; 
 Joses, the brother of Jesus, was one with the heavy 
 
 clod, 
 But Christ was the soul of rapture, and soared, like a 
 
 lark, with God. 
 
 Joses, the brother of Jesus, was only a worker in wood, 
 And he never could see the glory that Jesus, his 
 
 brother, could. 
 "Why stays he not in the workshop?" he often used 
 
 to complain, 
 "Sawing the Lebanon cedar, imparting to woods their 
 
 stain? 
 Why must he go thus roaming, forsaking my father s 
 
 trade, 
 While hammers are busily sounding, and there is gain 
 
 to be made?" 
 
 48 
 
Thus ran the mind of Joses, apt with plummet and 
 
 rule, 
 And deeming whoever surpassed him either a knave 
 
 or a fool, 
 For he never walked with the prophets in God s great 
 
 garden of bliss 
 And of all mistakes of the ages, the saddest, methinks, 
 
 was this 
 To have such a brother as Jesus, to speak with him 
 
 day by day, 
 But never to catch the vision which glorified his clay. 
 
 Joses, the Brother of Jesus 
 
 HARRY KEMP 
 
 Is not this the carpenter s son ? 
 
 I wish I had been His apprentice, to see Him each 
 
 morning at seven, 
 As He tossed His gray tunic far from Him, the Master 
 
 of earth and of heaven. 
 When He lifted the lid of His work chest and opened 
 
 His carpenter s kit 
 And looked at His chisels and augers, and took the 
 
 bright tools out of it 
 While He gazed at the rising sun tinting the dew on 
 
 the opening flowers 
 And smiled as He thought of His Father, whose love 
 
 floods this planet of ours, 
 49 
 
When He fastened His apron about Him, and put on 
 
 His working-man s cap, 
 And grasped the smooth hasp of the hammer, to give 
 
 the bent woodwork a tap, 
 Saying, " Lad, let me finish this ox yoke. The farmer 
 
 must put in his crop." 
 O, I wish I had been His apprentice and worked in 
 
 the Nazareth shop! 
 
 Some wish they had been on Mount Tabor, to hearken 
 
 unto His high speech 
 When the quick and the dead were beside Him, He 
 
 holding communion with each. 
 Some wish they had heard the soft accents that stilled 
 
 the wee children s alarms, 
 W 7 hen He won the sweet babes from their mothers and 
 
 folded them fast in His arms. 
 Some wish they had stood by the Jordan when holy 
 
 John greeted Him there 
 And seen the white dove of the Spirit fly down o er 
 
 the path of His prayer. 
 Some wish they had seen the Redeemer when into the 
 
 basin He poured 
 The water, and, girt with a towel, the servant of all 
 
 was the Lord. 
 But for me, if I had the choosing, O this would them 
 
 all overtop, 
 To work all day steady beside Him, of old in the 
 
 Nazareth shop. 
 
 50 
 
These heavenly wonders would fright me, I cannot 
 
 approach to them yet. 
 But, O, to have seen Him, when toiling, His forehead 
 
 all jeweled with sweat, 
 To hear Him say softly, "My helper, now bring me 
 
 the level and rule." 
 To hear Him bend over and teach me the use of the 
 
 artisan s tool. 
 To hear Him say, "This is a sheep gate, to keep in 
 
 the wandering flock," 
 Or, "This is stout oaken house sill. I hope it will 
 
 rest on a rock." 
 And sometimes His mother might bring us our meal 
 
 in the midsummer heat, 
 Outspread it so simply before us, and bid us sit down 
 
 and eat. 
 Then with both of us silent before Him, the blessed 
 
 Messiah would stop 
 To say grace, and a tremulous glory would fill the 
 
 Nazareth shop. 
 
 The Nazareth Shop 
 
 ROBERT MC!NTYRE 
 
 The measure of the stature 
 of the fullness of Christ! 
 
 And yet the daily task is sacred too, 
 And he who serves the Highest will not spurn 
 The humbler service, nor unloving turn 
 
 From claims of human kinship. No less true 
 51 
 
A mastery of our wills is that which through 
 Apprenticeship to other wills we learn, 
 Not servile, yet submissive to discern 
 
 God s bidding when a lowlier bids to do. 
 
 So through those silent unrecorded years 
 The matchless life grew slowly into power, 
 
 Brooding its mystery of hopes and fears 
 And moving ever forward toward the hour 
 
 When He who first had served at Nazareth 
 
 Life s Lord became, obedient unto Death. 
 
 Was Subject Unto Them 
 
 SARAH J. DAY 
 
 A workman that needeth not to be ashamed, 
 handling aright the word of truth. 
 
 The altar flame was white, the flowers red, 
 
 Through the hushed chancel, from the altar side, 
 
 Came the priest s prayer before the Living Bread, 
 He prayed, "O Victim, opening wide " 
 
 Rough scaffolding outside a shadow threw 
 On the tall window, veiled to hide the sun, 
 
 Crossbeams and bars, a tracery that grew 
 To a mute symbol of the day begun. 
 
 For, climbing, pausing, noiseless as a thought, 
 Black on the amber curtain s narrow span, 
 
 Among the bars and beams his hands had wrought, 
 There rose and crossed the shadow of a man. 
 
 52 
 
A man a carpenter. What breath of awe 
 Swept cold across our prayer-wrapt ecstasy, 
 
 In place of lights and kneeling priest, we saw 
 A workman s home in far-off Galilee. 
 
 Thy Church, Thy brother workman ! This we know- 
 (Help us, O Christ, the gulf is deep and wide!) 
 
 We kneel in peace where the tall candles glow, 
 Thy brother workmen face the world outside. 
 
 The Shadow 
 
 ELIZABETH CARTER 
 
 Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? 
 Philip saith unto him, Come and see. 
 
 Nazareth town in Galilee! 
 
 Set where the paths lead up from the sea 
 
 That like the chords of a mighty lyre 
 
 Dirges over the rocks of Tyre, 
 
 Mourns where the piers of Sidon shone, 
 
 And the battlements of Ascalon. 
 
 They have waned as the sunset wanes; 
 
 Little more than a name remains; 
 
 But more than a name we hold it, we, 
 
 Nazareth town in Galilee! 
 
 Nazareth town in Galilee! 
 
 Ah, what a golden harmony 
 
 The dawn seems, flooding its bright white walls! 
 
 And, when the violet twilight falls, 
 53 
 
What vast processional of stars 
 
 Pageants over its stilled bazaars! 
 
 And when the full moon touches the height 
 
 Of Tabor, a torch of brilliant light, 
 
 Never was sight more fair to see; 
 
 Nazareth town in Galilee! 
 
 Nazareth town in Galilee! 
 
 Strumming a desert melody, 
 
 The Bedouin minstrel trolls in the street; 
 
 At the Well of the Virgin the maidens meet; 
 
 The cactus-hedges crimson to flower, 
 
 The olives silver hour by hour 
 
 As through their branches the south wind steals; 
 
 A clear bell peals, and a vulture wheels 
 
 Over the crest where the wild crags be; 
 
 Nazareth town in Galilee! 
 
 Nazareth town in Galilee! 
 
 At the sound of the words how memory 
 
 Kindles as earth does under the spring, 
 
 Till the dead days rise for our visioning; 
 
 And out of them one compassionate face 
 
 Beams with a more than mortal grace; 
 
 Out of them one inspiring voice 
 
 Cries in the ears of the world, "Rejoice!" 
 
 And ever a beacon of hope shall be 
 
 Nazareth town in Galilee! 
 
 Nazareth Town 
 
 CLINTON SCOLLARD 
 54 
 
And his mother kept all these sayings 
 in her heart. 
 
 Mary sat in the corner dreaming, 
 
 Dim was the room and low, 
 While in the dusk the saw went screaming 
 
 To and fro. 
 
 Jesus and Joseph toiled together, 
 
 Mary was watching them, 
 Thinking of Kings in the wintry weather 
 
 At Bethlehem. 
 
 Mary sat in the corner thinking, 
 
 Jesus had grown a man; 
 One by one her hopes were sinking 
 
 As the years ran. 
 
 Jesus and Joseph toiled together, 
 
 Mary s thoughts were far 
 Angels sang in the wintry weather 
 
 Under a star. 
 
 Mary sat in the corner weeping, 
 
 Bitter and hot her tears 
 Little faith were the angels keeping 
 
 All the years. 
 
 In the Carpenter s Shop 
 
 SARA TEASDALE 
 
 55 
 
He was in the world, 
 
 and the world knew him not . . . 
 
 The summer dawn came over-soon, 
 The earth was like hot iron at noon 
 
 In Nazareth; 
 
 There fell no rain to ease the heat, 
 And dusk drew on with tired feet 
 
 And stifled breath. 
 
 The shop was low and hot and square, 
 And fresh-cut wood made sharp the air, 
 
 While all day long 
 
 The saw went tearing through the oak 
 That moaned as tho the tree s heart broke 
 
 Beneath its wrong. 
 
 The narrow street was full of cries, 
 Of bickering and snarling lies 
 
 In many keys 
 
 The tongues of Egypt and of Rome 
 And lands beyond the shifting foam 
 
 Of windy seas. 
 
 Sometimes a ruler riding fast 
 
 Scattered the dark crowds as he passed, 
 
 And drove them close 
 In doorways, drawing broken breath 
 Lest they be trampled to their death 
 
 Where the dust rose. 
 56 
 
There in the gathering night and noise 
 A group of Galilean boys 
 
 Crowding to see 
 
 Gray Joseph toiling with his son, 
 Saw Jesus, when the task was done, 
 
 Turn wearily. 
 
 He passed them by with hurried tread 
 Silently, nor raised his head, 
 
 He who looked up 
 Drinking all beauty from his birth 
 Out of the heaven and the earth 
 
 As from a cup. 
 
 And Mary, who was growing old, 
 Knew that the pottage would be cold 
 
 When he returned; 
 He hungered only for the night, 
 And westward, bending sharp and bright, 
 
 The thin moon burned. 
 
 He reached the open western gate 
 Where whining halt and leper wait, 
 
 And came at last 
 To the blue desert, where the deep 
 Great seas of twilight lay asleep, 
 
 Windless and vast. 
 
 With shining eyes the stars awoke, 
 
 The dew lay heavy on his cloak, 
 57 
 
The world was dim; 
 And in the stillness he could hear 
 His secret thoughts draw very near 
 
 And call to him. 
 
 Faint voices lifted shrill with pain 
 And multitudinous as rain; 
 
 From all the lands 
 And all the villages thereof 
 Men crying for the gift of love 
 
 With outstretched hands. 
 
 Voices that called with ceaseless crying 
 The broken and the blind, the dying, 
 
 And those grown dumb 
 Beneath oppression, and he heard 
 Upon their lips the single word, 
 
 "Come!" 
 
 Their cries engulfed him like the night, 
 The moon put out her placid light 
 
 And black and low 
 Nearer the heavy thunder drew, 
 Hushing the 1 voices . . . yet he knew 
 
 That he would go. 
 
 A quick-spun thread of lightning burns, 
 
 And for a flash the day returns 
 58 
 
He only hears 
 
 Joseph, an old man bent and white, 
 Toiling along from morn till night 
 
 Through all the years. 
 
 Swift clouds make all the heavens blind, 
 A storm is running on the wind 
 
 He only sees 
 
 How Mary will stretch out her hands 
 Sobbing, who never understands 
 
 Voices like these. 
 
 The Carpenter s Son 
 
 SARA TEASDALE 
 
THE MINISTRY OF 
 JESUS 
 
Thou art my beloved Son: 
 in thee I am well pleased. 
 
 Erect in youthful grace and radiant 
 
 With spirit forces, all imparadised 
 In a divine compassion, down the slant 
 
 Of these remembering hills He came, the Christ. 
 
 By the Sea of Galilee 
 
 KATHARINE LEE BATES 
 
 Lo, the world is gone after him! 
 
 At last the very land whose breath he breathed, 
 The very hills his bruised feet did climb! 
 This is his Olivet; on this Mount he stood, 
 As I do now, and with this same surprise 
 Straight down into the startling blue he gazed 
 Of the fair, turquoise mid-sea of the plain. 
 That long, straight, misty, dream-like, violet wall 
 Of Moab lo, how close it looms! The same 
 Quick human wonder struck his holy vision. 
 About these feet the flowers he knew so well. 
 Back where the city s shadow slowly climbs 
 There is a wood of Olives gaunt and gray 
 And centuries old; it holds the name it bore 
 
 That night of agony and bloody sweat. 
 
 63 
 
I tell you when I looked upon these fields 
 And stony valleys, through the purple veil 
 Of twilight, or what time the Orient sun 
 Made shining jewels of the barren rocks, 
 Something within me trembled; for I said: 
 This picture once was mirrored in his eyes; 
 This sky, that lake, those hills, this loveliness, 
 To him familiar were; this is the way 
 To Bethany; the red anemones 
 Along yon wandering path mark the steep road 
 To green-embowered Jordan. All is his: 
 These leprous outcasts pleading piteously; 
 This troubled country, troubled then as now, 
 And wild and bloody, this is his own land. 
 On such a day, girdled by these same hills, 
 Prest by his dark-browed, sullen, Orient crowd, 
 On yonder mount, spotted with crimson blooms, 
 He closed his eyes, in that dark tragedy 
 Which mortal spirit never dared to sound. 
 O God! I saw those eyes in every throng. 
 
 Part of a poem entitled, In Palestine 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER 
 
 Toward the sea, beyond the Jordan, 
 Galilee of the Gentiles. 
 
 Bright neath the Syrian sun, dim neath the Syrian 
 
 star, 
 Thus lieth Galilee s sea, sapphirine lake Gennesar; 
 
 64 
 
Girdled by mountains that range purple and proud 
 
 to their crests, 
 Bearing the burden of dreams, glamour of eld, on 
 
 their breasts. 
 
 Just one white glint of a sail dotting the brooding 
 
 expanse; 
 Beaches that sparkle and gleam, ripples that darkle 
 
 and dance; 
 
 Grandeur and beauty and peace welded year-long into 
 
 one, 
 Under the Syrian star, under the Syrian sun! 
 
 And over all and through all memories sweet of His 
 
 name, 
 Kindling the past with their light, touching the future 
 
 with flame! 
 
 Gennesar 
 
 CLINTON SCOLLARD 
 
 And straightway the Spirit 
 
 driveth him forth into the wilderness. 
 
 Up from the Jordan straight His way He took 
 To that lone wilderness, where rocks are hurled, 
 And strewn, and piled, as if the ancient world 
 
 In strong convulsions seethed and writhed and shook, 
 
 65 
 
Which heaved the valleys up, and sunk each brook, 
 And flung the molten rock like ribbons curled 
 In mists of gray around the mountains whirled: 
 
 A grim land, of a fierce, forbidding look. 
 
 The wild beasts haunt its barren stony heights, 
 And wilder visions came to tempt Him there; 
 For forty days and forty weary nights, 
 
 Alone He faced His mortal self and sin, 
 Chaos without, and chaos reigned within, 
 Subdued and conquered by the might of prayer. 
 
 The Wilderness 
 
 CAROLINE HAZARD 
 
 And Jesus went about in all Galilee, 
 preaching the gospel of the kingdom. 
 
 Should not the glowing lilies of the field 
 
 With keener splendor mark His footprints yet 
 
 Prints of the gentle feet whose passing healed 
 All blight from Tabor unto Olivet? 
 
 In His Steps 
 KATHARINE LEE BATES 
 
 The multitude welcomed him, 
 for they were all waiting for him. 
 
 Where the patient oxen were, by the ass s stall, 
 Watching my Lord s manger knelt the waking cattle all; 
 Twas a little country maid vigil by Him kept 
 
 All among the country things my good Lord slept. 
 
 66 
 
Fair was Rome the city on that early Christmas morn, 
 Yet among the country-folk was my Lord born! 
 
 Country-lads that followed Him, blithe they were and 
 
 kind, 
 
 It was only city folk were hard to Him and blind: 
 Ay, He told of lilies, and of grain and grass that grew, 
 Fair things of the summer fields my good Lord knew, 
 By the hedgerows flowering there He laid His head 
 It was in the country that my Lord was bred. 
 
 When the cross weighed down on Him, on the grievous 
 
 road, 
 
 Twas a kindly countryman raised my good Lord s load; 
 Peasant-girls of Galilee, folk of Nazareth 
 These were fain to follow him down the ways of death 
 Yea, beyond a city wall, underneath the sky, 
 Out in open country did my good Lord die. 
 
 When He rose to Heaven on that white Ascension day 
 Last from open country did my good Lord pass away; 
 Rows of golden seraphim watched where He should 
 
 dwell, 
 
 Yet it was the country-folk had my Lord s farewell: 
 Out above the flowered hill, from the mossy grass, 
 Up from open country did my good Lord pass. 
 
 Where the jewelled minsters are, where the censers 
 sway, 
 
 There they kneel to Christ the Lord on this His bearing- 
 day: 
 
But I shall stay to greet Him where the bonny fields 
 begin, 
 
 Like the fields that once my good Lord wandered in, 
 
 Where His thorn-tree flowered once, where His spar 
 rows soared, 
 
 In the open country of my good Lord! 
 
 A Country Carol 
 
 MARGARET WIDDEMER 
 
 What think ye of the Christ? 
 
 Comes any good from Nazareth? 
 
 The scornful challenge as of old 
 Is flung on many a jeering breath 
 
 From cloistered cells and marts of gold. 
 
 Comes any good from Nazareth? 
 
 Behold, the mighty Nazarene, 
 The Lord of life, the Lord of death, 
 
 Through warring ages walks serene. 
 
 One touch upon his garment s fringe 
 Still heals the hurt of bitter years. 
 
 Before Him yet the demons cringe, 
 He gives the wine of joy for tears. 
 
 O city of the Carpenter, 
 
 Upon the hill slope old and gray, 
 
 The world amid its pain and stir 
 Turns yearning eyes on thee to-day. 
 
 68 
 
For He who dwelt in Nazareth, 
 
 And wrought with toil of hand and brain, 
 Alone gives victory to faith 
 
 Until the day He come again. 
 
 From Nazareth 
 MARGARET E. SANGSTER 
 
 He opened his mouth and 
 taught them, saying 
 
 An upland plain, with sandy soil and bare; 
 
 Tall tufts of grass start from the barren ground 
 And branching bushes; scattered all around 
 
 Are jagged rocks to form a shelter where 
 
 The foxes still have holes and make their lair; 
 While birds of prey up in the still profound 
 Of lambent sky are circling o er the mound 
 
 Twin-crested, basking in the spring-time air. 
 
 It was upon that sun-crowned little hill 
 Beneath the Syrian sky the Master spoke 
 Such blessed words that they are living still; 
 
 "I have compassion on the multitude;" 
 
 And while He blessed and gave them mortal food 
 The everlasting bread for them He broke. 
 
 The Mount of Beatitudes 
 
 CAROLINE HAZARD 
 
 69 
 
And he spoke also this parable unto certain 
 who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. 
 
 Two men went up into God s place to pray, 
 The one a Pharisee. He stood apart. 
 Evening in flight had dropped immortal flowers 
 Of sunset bloom. The quiet city lay 
 Like a pale gem beneath a night of stars, 
 And no sound rose. 
 
 Besought the Pharisee, 
 Beating his head upon the marble wall, 
 "God, God, I thank Thee for this bitterness; 
 I thank Thee that, in anguish, I am lift 
 Above my fellows, that Thou choosest me 
 For throes that rend no other, that Thou givest 
 An awful and peculiar agony 
 Such as One only bore. I thank Thee, God!" 
 Then as he prayed, he listened to the sobs 
 Heaving up from his soul, counted the tears 
 That burned upon his face, and held his woe 
 Supreme ! 
 
 The other knelt, a Publican, 
 In sober dress and common attitude. 
 He prayed, "Ah, stern Jehovah, Thou dost take 
 My self-belief, my courage and my joy, 
 Even mine inmost treasure, secret love! 
 I bow to Thy decree. Mayhap Thy sword 
 Smites with like heaviness this desolate man 
 Beside me. We are brothers in despair. 
 Am I then isolate before Thy wrath? 
 
 70 
 
Am I then all alone in agony? 
 Behold, Thy pitiless, ironic word 
 Brands us alike, the mighty Pharisee 
 And the poor blinded, weeping Publican!" 
 
 The Pharisee 
 DOROTHY LANDERS BEALL 
 
 But while he was yet afar off, 
 
 his father saw him, and was moved with compassion. 
 
 Here feast I at my Father s board, 
 Who starved among the swine; 
 
 For me must every foot be fleet 
 And every lamp must shine; 
 
 For me the merry music sounds, 
 The dancers dip and twine. 
 
 My heart beats fast against my robe, 
 The best robe, soft and red; 
 
 With sobbing breath and tightening throat 
 And tears in rapture shed, 
 
 I feel His ring upon my hand, 
 His blessings on my head. 
 
 Ah, bitter was the way, and oft 
 My blood my path would trace; 
 
 And guilt and grief and stabbing shame 
 With all my steps kept pace; 
 
 And yet I famished not for bread 
 
 So sore as for His face. 
 71 
 
The road seemed endless. On I fared, 
 Wresting each mile from death; 
 
 Then such an awe upon me fell 
 I scarce could draw my breath; 
 
 My spirit felt His coming as 
 Of one that succoreth. 
 
 Blind, fainting, to His mighty breast 
 He caught and held me fast; 
 
 I knew the fortress of His arms 
 About my weakness cast; 
 
 And, when He kissed my traitor cheek, 
 I guessed His heart at last. 
 
 The piteous words I oft had conned 
 
 I trembling strove to say; 
 But sudden glory round me poured 
 
 A brighter, richer day. 
 In wonderment I lifted up 
 
 My head that drooping lay. 
 
 The glory streamed from out His eyes, 
 As from all Beauty s throne. 
 
 O depths of love unthinkable 
 That in that splendor shone! 
 
 O pain of love that travaileth 
 And bleedeth for its own! 
 
 O gleam of wisdom hoar with eld 
 
 Ere sang the stars of morn! 
 
 72 
 
O shifting, blending, dazzling lights, 
 That thrilled my hope forlorn 
 
 To undreamed miracles of joy 
 And surge of life reborn! 
 
 He brought me home, and here I sit, 
 
 Even in my boyhood s place; 
 And on my very soul is stamped 
 
 Each largess of His grace; 
 But still transfiguring all I see 
 
 That radiance of His face! 
 
 The Prodigal Son 
 
 MARION PELTON GUILD 
 
 Now there was a man of the Pharisees 
 named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: 
 the same came to Jesus by night. 
 
 And Nicodemus came by night 
 When none might hear or see 
 
 He came by night to shun men s sight 
 And away by night slunk he. 
 
 He dared not come by light of day 
 
 To move where sinners trod: 
 He must hold apart from the common heart, 
 
 For he was a Man of God. 
 
 73 
 
But the honest Christ, He walked with men 
 
 Nor held his ways apart 
 With publicans talked, with harlots walked, 
 
 And loved them all in his heart. . 
 
 Came Nicodemus to Christ by night; 
 
 And long they reasoned, alone, 
 Till the Old Man saw the sham of the Law 
 
 That turned his being to stone: 
 
 He tore the formal husks from his life, 
 He was born again, though gray. 
 
 And, erect with the youth of a Living Truth, 
 He dared the world by day! 
 
 Nicodemus 
 
 HARRY KEMP 
 
 For Mary hath chosen the good part, 
 which shall not be taken away from her. 
 
 Now the Martha of her stiffened to her load, 
 Down-weighing, of relentless daily care. 
 
 Now she straightened upright, would not bend nor 
 
 break, 
 But held herself all iron standing there. 
 
 When the Mary of her called unto her soul, 
 And made a moan, and cried to it in vain: 
 
 "Oh, this woman look! She fretteth overmuch 
 And leaves no space for me; Lord, I complain " 
 
 74 
 
But the Martha of her listened with the sigh 
 Of those too weary or too strong to rest: 
 
 "Tell who taketh, then, this burden if I cease, 
 And empty both my hands upon my breast." 
 
 Oh, a soul divided is a soul forspent, 
 She went still asking: "Is it I? Or I?" 
 
 Low forever through the silence Mary spoke, 
 And Martha, sad and sure, did make reply. 
 
 Till the irony and harmony of death 
 
 Made out of these a concord high and sweet. 
 
 When the Martha of the woman, toiling, passed, 
 Estranged from ease, she sought her Master s feet. 
 
 "Now my turn has come, my turn at last," she cried, 
 "My time to worship, listening to Thy word." 
 
 Ah, but calm beyond her, fair above her still, 
 The Mary of her knelt before the Lord. 
 
 The Twain of Her 
 ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD 
 
 Foxes have holes and birds have nests, 
 but the Son of Man hath not where to 
 lay his head. 
 
 No longer of Him be it said, 
 
 "He hath no place to lay His head." 
 
 In every land a constant lamp 
 Flames by His small and mighty camp. 
 
 75 
 
There is no strange and distant place 
 That is not gladdened by His face. 
 
 And every nation kneels to hail 
 
 The Splendor shining through its veil. 
 
 Cloistered beside the shouting street, 
 Silent, He calls me to His feet. 
 
 Imprisoned for His love of me 
 He makes my spirit greatly free. 
 
 And through my lips that uttered sin 
 The King of Glory enters in. 
 
 Citizen of the World 
 
 JOYCE KILMER 
 
 And lifting up their eyes, 
 
 they saw no one, save Jesus only. 
 
 If Death should visit me to-night 
 And bid me forth unto the skies 
 I pray Thee, Christ, to let me see 
 No jasper paradise. 
 
 But Thee, in fields of asphodel, 
 Familiar as my earth-eyes knew, 
 With face uplift and radiant, 
 The Christ that Raphael drew. 
 
 The Christ of Raphael s Transfiguration 
 
 MARY Bo WEN BRAINERD 
 
 76 
 
Raise the stone, and there thou shall find Me ; 
 cleave the wood, and there am I. Logion V. 
 
 Hear the word that Jesus spake 
 Eighteen centuries ago, 
 Where the crimson lilies blow 
 Round the blue Tiberian lake: 
 There the bread of life he brake, 
 
 Through the fields of harvest walking 
 With His lowly comrades, talking 
 Of the secret thoughts that feed 
 Weary hearts in time of need. 
 Art thou hungry? Come and take; 
 Hear the word that Jesus spake: 
 Tis the sacrament of labour; meat and drink divinely 
 
 blest; 
 
 Friendship s food, and sweet refreshment; strength 
 and courage, joy and rest. 
 
 Yet this word the Master said, 
 
 Long ago and far away, 
 
 Silent and forgotten lay 
 Buried with the silent dead, 
 Where the sands of Egypt spread, 
 
 Sea-like, tawny billows heaping 
 
 Over ancient cities sleeping; 
 While the River Nile between 
 Rolls its summer flood of green, 
 
 Rolls its autumn flood of red, 
 
 There the word the Master said 
 
 77 
 
Written on a frail papyrus, scorched by fire, wrinkled, 
 
 torn, 
 Hidden in God s hand, was waiting for its resurrection 
 
 morn. 
 
 Hear the Master s risen word! 
 Delving spades have set it free, 
 Wake! the world has need of thee, 
 Rise, and let thy voice be heard, 
 Like a fountain disinterred, 
 
 Upward springing, singing, sparkling; 
 Through the doubtful shadows darkling; 
 Till the clouds of pain and rage 
 Brooding o er the toiling age, 
 As with rifts of light are stirred 
 By the music of the word; 
 Gospel for the heavy-laden, answer to the labourer s 
 
 cry; 
 
 "Raise the stone, and thou shalt find me; cleave the 
 wood, and there am I." 
 
 A Lost Word of Jesus 
 
 HENRY VAN DYKE 
 
 Come unto Me and I will give you rest. 
 
 We labor and are heavy-laden. Where 
 
 Shall we find rest unto our souls? We bleed 
 On thorn and flint, and rove in pilgrim weed 
 From shrine to shrine, but comfort is not there. 
 
 78 
 
Wliat went we out into thy desert bare, 
 O Human Life, to see? Thy greenest reed 
 Is Love, unmighty for our utmost need, 
 And shaken with the wind of our despair. 
 
 A voice from Heaven like dew on Hermon falleth, 
 That voice whose passion paled the olive leaf 
 In thy dusky aisles, Gethsemane, thou blest 
 
 Of gardens. Tis the Man of Sorrows calleth, 
 The Man of Sorrows and acquaint with grief: 
 "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." 
 
 Come Unto Me 
 
 KATHARINE LEE BATES 
 
 For power came from him, 
 and healed them all. 
 
 "Some one has touched me, touched my garment 
 
 hem; 
 
 For I perceive that power hath issued hence." 
 There stayed the Christ midway, and journeyed 
 
 thence 
 
 To her just dropped from Jairus diadem, 
 A virgin shining pure, worth living, gem 
 Of Israel. Can Jesus recompense? 
 He may? Who stopped him? Dared such give 
 
 offense? 
 
 Twas one impure, and cured! He answers them: 
 "Power hath gone out from me." O, thus began, 
 And thus continued, His atonement true. 
 
 79 
 
Drop after drop, His anguished heart gave man 
 The life that saves, till death o er-anxious grew 
 
 To meet Him face to face, with hell s dire clan. 
 Then Christ gave all, and sin and death overthrew, 
 
 The Cost of Saving 
 
 FRANK W. GUNSAULUS 
 
 Consider the lilies 
 of the field! 
 
 Thy loveliness is meek and free 
 
 From arrogance, and yet I find 
 A certain stately pride in thee 
 
 That wakens reverie in my mind 
 
 And well I ween why it is so! 
 
 A lily once the Master took 
 His lesson from, then let it go, 
 
 But first He blessed it with a look. 
 
 Ah! who can doubt the flower was thrilled 
 With tremblings strange and raised its head 
 
 With joy, its lovesome body filled 
 With sense of what the Master said? 
 
 And lilies sine, forevermore, 
 
 Do hold them high, do bear them well, 
 Do raise their cups more proudly, for 
 
 The lily of the parable. 
 
 The Lily 
 RICHARD BURTON 
 
 80 
 
Come ye apart into a desert place 
 and rest a while, 
 
 A pale light streaming through the rainy sky 
 
 Like peace through sorrow, comforting the eye 
 
 On our Palm Sunday, wayworn pilgrims three, 
 
 Beside the lonely lake of Galilee 
 
 Most blest of lakes, whose hush remembers yet 
 
 Those multitudes on broad Gennesaret, 
 
 The reaching arms, the cries that still pursued, 
 
 As Jesus sought the mid-sea solitude. 
 
 How oft Mount Hermon, in the sunset glow, 
 Would cleave its clouds, exceeding white as snow, 
 An alabaster altar crowned with fire, 
 To worship Him, the blind world s long Desire, 
 The Christ, a guest in some rude fishing-boat, 
 Wrapt in His seamless Galilean coat, 
 Forspent with healing, drawing heavy breath, 
 The Lord of Life Who went the way of death. 
 
 And He, on whom our mortal weakness weighed, 
 Even on Him, Whom winds and waves obeyed,- 
 Would peradventure watch, too tired for prayer, 
 That sudden splendor melt in purple air, 
 As dusk drew over and the stars shone out, 
 Until the murmurous ripples, that about 
 The rocking keel intoned their timid psalms, 
 Were to His slumber like the sound of palms. 
 
 If then stepped soft the sons of Zebedee 
 To ease the drooping head on patient knee 
 
 81 
 
Or coil of net for pillow, surely they 
 
 Marvelled above the Dreamer, for He lay 
 
 With tender triumph on the wistful face, 
 
 As of one welcomed by the waving grace 
 
 Of fair green branches, while their hearts in them 
 
 Burned with impatience for Jerusalem. 
 
 Palm Sunday in Galilee 
 
 KATHARINE LEE BATES 
 
 Why are ye fearful ? 
 Have ye not yet faith ? 
 
 What shall we do when two great tides knock 
 And remorseless enter though walls be rock? 
 When the strong waves dash and the surges roll 
 And Creation s forces overwhelm the soul? 
 Christ! oh Christ! once again say "Peace!" 
 Yet once again bid the tempest cease! 
 
 What shall we do when the tides go back, 
 When the dull sky hangs over weed and wrack, 
 When there s nothing left for the dreary strand 
 But a foam-spread waste and a sea-wet sand? 
 Once again, oh Christ! build Thy little fire; 
 Feed and comfort us, Heart s Desire! 
 
 Consolator 
 MAI ELMENDORF LILLIE 
 
 82 
 
Put out into the deep 
 
 and let down your nets for a draught. 
 
 Yea, we have toiled all night. All night 
 We kept the boats, we cast the nets. 
 
 Nothing avails: the tides withhold, 
 The Sea hears not, and God forgets. 
 
 Long ere the sunset, we took leave 
 
 Of them at home whom want doth keep; 
 
 Now bitterness be all their bread 
 
 And tears their drink, and death their sleep! 
 
 The gaunt moon stayed to look on us 
 
 And marvel we abode so still. 
 Again we cast, again we drew 
 
 The nets that naught but hope did fill. 
 
 And while the grasp of near Despair 
 Did threaten nearer with the day, 
 
 Leagues out, the bounteous silver-sides 
 
 Leaped through the sheltering waves, at play! 
 
 So, stricken with the cold that smites 
 Death to a dying heart at morn, 
 
 We waited, thralls to hunger, such 
 
 As the strong stars may laugh to scorn. 
 
 And while we strove, leagues out, afar, 
 Returning tides, with mighty hands 
 Full of the silver! passed us by 
 
 To cast it upon alien lands. 
 
 83 
 
Against the surge of hope we stood 
 And the waves laughed with victory; 
 
 Yet at our heart-strings, with the nets, 
 Tugged the false promise of the sea. 
 
 So all the night-time we kept watch; 
 
 And when the years of night were done, 
 Aflame with hunger, stared on us 
 
 The fixed red eye of yonder sun. 
 
 Thou Wanderer from land to land, 
 Say who Thou art that bids us strive 
 
 Once more against the eternal Sea 
 That loves to take strong men alive. 
 
 Lo, we stood fast, and we endure: 
 
 But trust not Thou the Sea we know, 
 
 Mighty of bounty and of hate, 
 
 Slayer and friend, with ebb and flow. 
 
 Thou hast not measured strength as we 
 Sea-faring men that toil. And yet 
 
 Once more, once more at Thy strange word, 
 Master, we will let down the net! 
 
 The Fishers 
 JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY 
 
 84 
 
And he came forth and saw a great multitude, 
 and he had compassion on them. 
 
 When the golden evening gathered on the shore of Galilee, 
 
 When the fishing boats lay quiet by the sea, 
 
 Long ago the people wondered, tho no sign was in 
 
 the sky, 
 For the glory of the Lord was passing by. 
 
 Not in robes of purple splendor, not in silken softness 
 
 shod, 
 
 But in raiment worn with travel came their God, 
 And the people knew His presence by the heart that 
 
 ceased to sigh 
 When the glory of the Lord was passing by. 
 
 For He healed their sick at even, and He cured the 
 
 leper s sore, 
 
 And sinful men and women sinned no more, 
 And the world grew mirthful-hearted, and forgot its 
 
 misery 
 When the glory of the Lord was passing by. 
 
 Not in robes of purple splendor, but in lives that do 
 
 His will, 
 
 In patient acts of kindness He comes still; 
 And the people cry with wonder, tho no sign is in 
 
 the sky, 
 That the glory of the Lord is passing by. 
 
 How He Came 
 
 W. J. DAWSON 
 
 85 
 
To-day is salvation come to this house. 
 
 For the Son of man came to seek and to save 
 
 that which was lost. 
 
 This plain made bright with streaks of crimson clay 
 And sprinkled o er with grains of golden sand 
 The vestige of a long-forgotten strand 
 
 Once saw the host of Israel as it lay 
 
 With pikes and trumpets in war s fierce array. 
 Now in the grass the solemn wild storks stand, 
 A pensive silence broods upon the land, 
 
 Unbroken by the shout which won that day. 
 
 Zaccheus lived here, who desired to see 
 
 When Christ came down the Jordan wilderness; 
 
 And one born blind cried out exceedingly. 
 I too am blind, my Lord; oh, give me sight! 
 
 Illume my mind, Thou very Light of Light! 
 
 I cannot let Thee go until Thou bless. 
 
 Jericho 
 
 CAROLINE HAZARD 
 
 He told me all things that ever I did. 
 
 Too well I know what the voices mean 
 The tale of the mart, the cry of the street, 
 The whispered word and the grin unclean 
 
 That follow my weary-moving feet 
 86 
 
I am what they will not forget 
 
 Who kept their girlhood clean and free 
 
 A woman of the street, and yet, 
 
 The Christ s own hand fell soft on me. 
 
 Bitter it is to feel and know 
 I love the life I now must lead 
 The thrilling glare, the flaunting show, 
 The painted craft, the shallow greed: 
 Yes, I could find it in my power 
 To laugh and burn my life away, 
 But that there comes a little hour 
 Between the fevered night and day, 
 
 In the chill dawn, perhaps, or blown 
 Down the still pave, when one by one 
 The beacon street-lamps wink alone, 
 The day s work ended, mine begun 
 Then like a knell of death I hear 
 "Thou art forgiv n: go, sin no more!" 
 But whither can I take my fear, 
 And who will bide the leper s sore? 
 
 A Woman of Samaria 
 
 DOUGLAS DUER 
 
 Go, and sin no more. 
 
 Master, what work hast thou for me, 
 For me, who turn aside in shame 
 Before the eyes of my own blame? 
 Thou seest, Lord. 
 
 87 
 
I see. 
 
 That shame for Me thou shalt endure, 
 That thou mayst succour souls afraid, 
 Who would not dare to seek for aid 
 The mercilessly pure. 
 
 But must my heart forever show 
 These scars of unforgotten pain? 
 May it be never whole again? 
 Thou knowest, Lord. 
 
 I know. 
 
 Those scars I leave thee for a sign 
 That bleeding hearts may creep to rest 
 As on a mother s sheltering breast 
 On that scarred heart of thine. 
 
 Magdalen to Christ 
 
 AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 
 
 And I give unto them eternal life; 
 and they shall never perish. 
 
 Lazarus tells the people that crowd about him why he 
 came back from the land of the dead. 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 Who has seen Heaven 
 
 May pass no speech upon it. I grow dumb 
 And helpless thinking of it, with no words 
 But for one only thing, and that the best, 
 Since that it lured me out of perfect bliss 
 
 And Heaven was not strong to keep me from it. 
 
 88 
 
The crowd 
 The Christ! The Christ! 
 
 A man 
 
 I think it was His face 
 
 That shone upon thee. If I were dispersed 
 Into the various ways of sun and dew, 
 A portion of the slow mood of the soil 
 And sweet thought of the air, I would return 
 And, reaching helpless hands out of the dust, 
 Gathering dimly out of stone and rain, 
 Would rear myself before Him if His face 
 But shone upon the world where I abode. 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 Nay, not the love and solace of His face. 
 
 A woman 
 
 What drew thee, then? The way were cold to come 
 With no dear smile to lure. What better thing 
 Bade thee from Paradise? 
 
 A man 
 
 It was His voice! 
 
 Ay! Were I feasting with the happy dead 
 And shouting with great laughter, I would rise, 
 Forgetting love and cheer for ways forlorn 
 So that His voice called. 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 Nay not His voice. 
 
A woman 
 
 Thou earnest all alone? What swayed thee, then, 
 To seek our sorrow from the blessed dead? 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 A great desire led me out alone 
 
 From those assured abodes of perfect bliss. 
 
 One thing more fair than they, more keen, more 
 
 sweet ! 
 
 And I was swayed before it helplessly, 
 For the desire of it; and I rose, 
 And stepped from those slow seons of delight 
 And by the way I went came seeking earth, 
 Seeing before my eyes one only thing 
 
 The crowd 
 
 What was it, Lazarus? Let us share that thing. 
 What was it, brother, thou didst see? 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 A cross. 
 
 Passage from Lazarus 
 ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH 
 
THE GREAT WEEK IN 
 JESUS LIFE 
 
My house shall be called a house of prayer 
 for all the nations. 
 
 On the day that Christ ascended 
 
 To Jerusalem, 
 
 Singing multitudes attended, 
 And the very heavens were rended 
 
 With the shout of them. 
 
 Chanted they a sacred ditty, 
 
 Every heart elate; 
 But he wept in brooding pity, 
 Then went in the holy city 
 
 By the Golden Gate. 
 
 In the temple, lo! what lightning 
 
 Makes unseemly rout 
 He in anger, sudden, frightening, 
 Drives with scorn and scourge the whitening 
 
 Money-changers out. 
 
 By the way that Christ descended 
 
 From Mount Olivet, 
 I, a lonely pilgrim, wended, 
 On the day his entry splendid 
 
 Is remembered yet. 
 93 
 
And I thought: If he, returning 
 
 On this high festival, 
 
 Here should haste with love and yearning, 
 Where would now his fearful, burning 
 
 Anger flash and fall? 
 
 In the very house they builded 
 
 To his saving name, 
 Mid their altars, gemmed and gilded, 
 Would his scourge and scorn be wielded, 
 
 His fierce lightning flame? 
 
 Once again, O Man of Wonder, 
 
 Let thy voice be heard! 
 Speak as with a sound of thunder; 
 Drive the false thy roof from under, 
 
 Teach thy priests thy word. 
 
 The Anger of Christ 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER 
 
 But ye have made it a den of robbers. 
 
 That day the doves with burnished breasts 
 Uneasy were; we, halt and blind and lame, 
 
 Within the temple waited, ugly guests, 
 
 Hoping, in spite of filth, disease and shame; 
 
 Outside the multitude waved branches green, 
 
 Calling, "Hosanna to the Nazarene." 
 
 94 
 
I shrank close to the roof-prop, for my eyes 
 
 Were dead to seeing: but I heard the clink of 
 
 coins, 
 The piles of silver shekels steadily rise, 
 
 Poured from sheiks bags and belts round merchant 
 
 loins; 
 
 I heard the purple priced; and in between 
 Far off, "Hosanna to the Nazarene." 
 
 I could not see Him enter, but I heard 
 The multitude and smelled the dusty throng: 
 
 Old Anab brushed me with his ragged beard, 
 
 Muttering, "Kneel, thou! He will speak ere long." 
 
 Yea though five times more leprous I had been 
 
 I would come here to implore the Nazarene. 
 
 But then the woman Terah, ill of pox, 
 
 Began to whimper. "See, he bringeth woe! 
 
 He overturns the booths, the treasure-box; 
 
 His eyes blaze on the dove-sellers. Let us go! 
 
 He ll scourge us, smite us. Tush! It is well seen 
 
 We shall be cursed of the Nazarene." 
 
 A form swept past us, we in terror caught 
 A man s clear voice of anger: then the sound 
 
 Of fleeing feet of traffickers, onslaught 
 
 On booths, and tables crashing to the ground. 
 
 I heard the money scatter and careen 
 
 Under the spurning of the Nazarene. 
 
 95 
 
Rachel, a maiden, clutched my sleeve, and shrank 
 With me behind the curtain, and the crowd 
 
 Surged wildly past. For us, our dear hopes sank 
 Under that stern voice cutting like a goad, 
 
 Judging, arraigning, charging; mid the spleen 
 
 Of money-changers, stood the Nazarene! 
 
 "This temple is my house, the House of Prayer!" 
 (His voice was like the wind that whips the leaves) 
 
 "But with your buy ings and your sellings there 
 Ye ye have made my house a den of thieves! 9 
 
 Then little Rachel sobbed; "Awful his mien; 
 
 His eyes are flames; I fear the Nazarene." 
 
 But when the temple silenced while a dove 
 Fluttered and soared and beat against the roof, 
 
 We frightened beggars heard a voice of love 
 Calling us gently; then his tender proof 
 
 He gave. He healed us! I, who had been 
 
 Blind from my birth I saw the Nazarene! 
 
 Told in the Market-place 
 
 EDWINA STANTON BABCOCK 
 
 Blessed is the king that cometh 
 in the name of the Lord. 
 
 The street stands crowded from wall to wall, 
 Yon Hebrew boy, come here, I pray, 
 And tell me what has sufficed to call 
 
 Such multitude abroad to-day. 
 96 
 
"Friend, do you see upon yonder hill 
 
 Where the road winds around old Olive s brow?" 
 
 "Lad, I see only the sunshine still, 
 
 And some ragged trees and the dust below; 
 
 "While along the poor path some weary men, 
 
 With one in their midst as poor as they; 
 
 He is much bespent, for I see again, 
 
 That he rides on an ass; and they draw this way." 
 
 "Stranger, many a month before, 
 
 I stood on the coast of Gennesaret s sea; 
 
 In a basket of wicker some loaves I bore 
 
 That my mother, at home, had prepared for me. 
 
 "Stranger, just at the set of the sun, 
 
 He that was teaching called me anear; 
 
 Will you give me your loaves, lad? Every one! 
 
 I answered, and gave them with never a fear. 
 
 "Stranger, five thousand men and more 
 Had heard what the teacher had to say; 
 And these were hungry; He blessed my store, 
 And He fed them all, and He sent them away. 
 
 "Stranger, He that rides down toward the gate 
 Is that Teacher All Hail! Let me go, I say. 
 I must join them at once. I would not be late. 
 You must keep me no longer, I cannot stay." 
 97 
 
"Hosanna!" down from the hill they cry, 
 "Hosanna!" comes back from the town below, 
 As they pay meet homage and honor high, 
 And for Christ s dear feet their green palms strow. 
 
 Part of a poem called Palm Sunday 
 
 CARROLL LUND BATES 
 
 When he drew nigh, he saw the city, 
 and wept over it. 
 
 The long ascent was ended, evening shed 
 
 Its softest light, and from Mount Olive s brow 
 The holy city stood before Him; how 
 
 Fair, with temple crowned and garlanded 
 
 With massive walls. The sacrifice is led 
 Not only in the days of Abraham s vow 
 To Mount Moriah, but comes here and now 
 
 Upon the ass s colt with garments spread. 
 
 "Jerusalem," the tender voice laments, 
 
 "That stonest those that come to thy release, 
 The slaughter of the holy innocents, 
 
 The blood of martyrs make thy diadem; 
 If thou hadst known, e en thou, Jerusalem, 
 The precious things belonging to thy peace!" 
 
 The Lament 
 
 CAROLINE HAZARD 
 
 98 
 
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 
 that killetk the prophets! 
 
 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who oft 
 
 His love had gathered thee beneath its wings 
 And thou wouldst not! Love crucified aloft 
 
 On Calvary, enthroned the King of Kings. 
 
 At Jerusalem 
 KATHARINE LEE BATES 
 
 Are ye able to drink the cup 
 that I am about to drink? 
 
 At last the bird that sung so long 
 In twilight circles, hushed his song; 
 Above the ancient square 
 The stars came here and there. 
 
 Good Friday Night! Some hearts were bowed, 
 But some amid the waiting crowd 
 Because of too much youth 
 Felt not the mystic ruth; 
 
 And of these hearts my heart was one: 
 Nor when beneath the arch of stone 
 With dirge and candle flame 
 The cross of passion came, 
 
 Did my glad spirit feel reproof, 
 Though on the awful tree aloof, 
 
 99 
 
Unspiritual, dead, 
 
 Drooped the ensanguined Head. 
 
 To one who stood where myrtles made 
 A little space of deeper shade 
 (As I could half descry, 
 A stranger, even as I), 
 
 I said, "Those youths who bear along 
 The symbols of their Saviour s wrong, 
 The spear, the garment torn, 
 The flaggel, and the thorn, 
 
 "Why do they make this mummery? 
 Would not a brave man gladly die 
 For a much smaller thing 
 Than to be Christ and king?" 
 
 He answered nothing, and I turned. 
 Throned in its hundred candles burned 
 The jewelled eidolon 
 Of her who bore the Son. 
 
 The crowd was prostrate; still, I felt 
 No shame until the stranger knelt; 
 Then not to kneel, almost 
 Seemed like a vulgar boast. 
 
 I knelt. The doll-face, waxen white, 
 Flowered out a living dimness; bright 
 Dawned the dear mortal grace 
 Of my own mother s face. 
 100 
 
When we were risen up, the street 
 Was vacant; all the air hung sweet 
 With lemon-flowers; and soon 
 The sky would hold the moon. 
 
 More silently than new-found friends 
 To whom much silence makes amends 
 For the much babble vain 
 While yet their lives were twain, 
 
 We walked along the odorous hill. 
 The light was little yet; his will 
 I could not see to trace 
 Upon his form or face. 
 
 So when aloft the gold moon broke, 
 I cried, heart-stung. As one who woke 
 He turned unto my cries 
 The anguish of his eyes. 
 
 "Friend! Master!" I cried falteringly, 
 "Thou seest the thing they make of Thee. 
 Oh, by the light divine, 
 My mother shares with thine, 
 
 "I beg that I may lay my head 
 Upon thy shoulder and be fed 
 With thoughts of brotherhood!" 
 
 So through the odorous wood, 
 101 
 
More silently than friends new-found 
 We walked. At the first meadow bound 
 His figure ashen-stoled 
 Sank in the moon s broad gold. 
 
 Good Friday Night 
 
 WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 
 
 Having loved his own which were in the 
 world, he loved them unto the end. 
 
 John, my beloved, come with me apart 
 In this dim garden for a little space. 
 I cannot rest me though the others sleep; 
 There is a time to wake them, but not now. 
 
 Is it not good to climb this hill to-night 
 
 After the glad hozannas in the street, 
 
 The crowding faces, life and men and love, 
 
 Here on the slope of the eternal stars 
 
 To watch the lights that shine through Kedron s vale, 
 
 And neath the olives walk alone with God ? 
 
 Tis not the first time that we two have walked 
 Shoulder to shoulder underneath the stars; 
 Nor yet the last, John, though to-morrow s sun 
 Should dawn upon you, and on you alone. 
 
 Nay, my good brother, loose your fingers grip. 
 You could not keep me if I willed to go: 
 
 102 
 
Your heart enfolds me, not your fearful arm 
 The lights shine clearer through the dusky vale, 
 And with their coming, John, we say goodbye. 
 
 We say goodbye, for every road must end, 
 All pleasant journeys underneath the sun; 
 Claspt hands are severed, hungry lips must part, 
 The long night comes at close of every day, 
 And men must slumber when their work is done. 
 
 Nay, it is better, light is not light alone; 
 
 Were there no shadows, even suns were blind; 
 
 Only by parting do men meet again. 
 
 And we have met, John, met in a holy land 
 
 Alone with God in his great silences 
 
 Where never men have ventured you and I. 
 
 And we have looked upon the gates of heaven, 
 
 Beyond the stars, beyond the flaming sun, 
 
 Beyond all time, and known that God is love. 
 
 Was it not worth it, just to dare to be 
 One s simple self, to think, to love, to do, 
 And not to be ashamed? To live one s life 
 Fearless and pure and strong, true to one s self, 
 Though the false world were full of lies and hate, 
 Where blind men lead each other through the dark, 
 Too weak to sin, ashamed of what is good, 
 Unable to do evil, thinking it. 
 
 But we have dared. David and Jonathan 
 Drank no divinelier in courts of Saul 
 
 Than we together in Gethsemane. 
 
 103 
 
And though to-night I drain the cup of death 
 Down to the stinging dregs of Judas kiss, 
 The wine of love lies sweeter on my lips 
 I see the lanterns gleaming. Kiss me, John. 
 
 John 
 WILLARD WATTLES 
 
 He went forth with his disciples over the brook Kidron, 
 where was a garden. 
 
 Into the woods my Master went, 
 
 Clean forspent, forspent. 
 
 Into the woods my Master came, 
 
 Forspent with love and shame. 
 
 But the olives they were not blind to Him, 
 
 The little gray leaves were kind to Him, 
 
 The thorn-tree had a mind to Him, 
 
 When into the woods He came. 
 
 Out of the woods my Master went, 
 
 And He was well content. 
 
 Out of the woods my Master came, 
 
 Content with love and shame. 
 
 When Death and Shame would woo Him last, 
 
 From under the trees they drew Him last: 
 
 Twas on a tree they slew Him last 
 
 When out of the woods He came. 
 
 A Ballad of Trees and the Master 
 
 SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 104 
 
My soul is exceeding sorrowful 
 
 even unto death; 
 
 abide ye here, and watch. 
 
 There is a sighing in the pallid sprays 
 Of these old olives, as if still they kept 
 
 Their pitying watch, in Nature s faithful ways, 
 As on that night when the disciples slept, 
 
 At Gethsemane 
 KATHARINE LEE BATES 
 
 What then shall I do unto Jesus 
 who is called the Christ? 
 
 Have thou naught to do with Him, O Pilate, 
 With that Just One! For to-night a dream 
 Or an angel spoke: most dread revealing 
 Did the vision seem! 
 
 Throned amid the clouds of heaven I see Him; 
 
 See the lightnings flashing from His brow; 
 And that Face! tis His, the Galilean s, 
 Thou art judging now. 
 
 Oh, the clouds of splendor! they enfold Him: 
 
 How the angels throng; their faces shine; 
 Oh, His eyes! with calmness, deep, majestic, 
 
 Looking into mine: 
 105 
 
But I shrink away, I cannot bear it, 
 
 All that glory. Heaven is bending down, 
 And the thorn-pierced, mighty brow, refulgent, 
 Wears a victor s crown. 
 
 Earth, all hushed, is waiting to adore Him, 
 
 Mighty seas are murmuring at His feet; 
 Mountain heights, in silence, grand, before Him 
 Stand, their King to greet. 
 
 See, the nations gather; He hath called them, 
 
 His, the mighty fiat they obey; 
 His, the Man enthroned amid the angels 
 On that awful day. 
 
 Barest thou meet Him, in the hour of judgment? 
 
 Pilate, canst thou answer to His call? 
 Trembling I behold thee; pallid terror 
 Holdeth thee in thrall: 
 
 Dumb, convicted, thou wouldst sue for mercy, 
 Yet canst find no plea, can speak no word: 
 Who is this? the Judge, whose silence smiteth 
 Like avenging sword? 
 
 Fades the dream, as dawn dispels the midnight; 
 
 Last to vanish is that Face sublime; 
 And His eyes, still searching mine, command me 
 
 Speak, while yet there s time. 
 106 
 
Oh, refuse not! Pilate, heed the vision, 
 
 All my soul in anguish bids thee hear; 
 Oh, condemn thou not this Man, the Just One; 
 For I fear, / fear! 
 
 The Dream of Claudia Procula 
 
 MARTHA ELVIRA PETTUS 
 
 The unsearchable riches of Christ. 
 
 My Master was so very poor, 
 A manger was His cradling place; 
 So very rich my Master was 
 Kings came from far 
 To gain His grace. 
 
 My Master was so very poor 
 
 And with the poor He broke the bread; 
 
 So very rich my Master was 
 
 That multitudes 
 
 By him were fed. 
 
 My Master was so very poor 
 They nailed Him naked to a cross; 
 So very rich my Master was 
 He gave His all 
 And knew no loss. 
 
 My Master 
 
 HARRY LEE 
 
 107 
 
Pilate delivered Jesus y when 
 he had secured him, to be 
 crucified. 
 
 I saw in Siena pictures, 
 
 Wandering wearily; 
 I sought not the names of the masters 
 
 Nor the works men care to see; 
 But once in a low-ceiled passage 
 
 I came on a place of gloom, 
 Lit here and there with halos 
 
 Like saints within the room. 
 The pure, serene, mild colors 
 
 The early artists used 
 Had made my heart grow softer, 
 
 And still on peace I mused. 
 Sudden I saw the Sufferer, 
 
 And my frame was clenched with pain; 
 Perchance no throe so noble 
 
 Visits my soul again. 
 Mine were the stripes of the scourging; 
 
 On my thorn-pierced brow blood ran; 
 In my breast the deep compassion 
 
 Breaking the heart for man. 
 I drooped with heavy eyelids, 
 
 Till evil should have its will; 
 On my lips was silence gathered; 
 
 My waiting soul stood still. 
 I gazed, nor knew I was gazing; 
 
 I trembled, and woke to know 
 Him whom they worship in heaven 
 
 Still walking on earth below. 
 
 108 
 
Once have I borne his sorrows 
 
 Beneath the flail of fate! 
 Once, in the woe of his passion, 
 
 I felt the soul grow great! 
 I turned from my dead Leader; 
 
 I passed the silent door; 
 The gray-walled street received me; 
 
 On peace I mused no more. 
 
 Christ Scourged 
 GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY 
 
 And they crucify him. 
 
 Friendless and faint, with martyred steps and slow, 
 
 Faint for the flesh, but for the spirit free, 
 
 Stung by the mob that came to see the show, 
 
 The Master toiled along to Calvary; 
 
 We gibed him, as he went, with houndish glee, 
 
 Till his dim eyes for us did overflow; 
 
 We cursed his vengeless hands thrice wretchedly, 
 
 And this was nineteen hundred years ago. 
 
 But after nineteen hundred years the shame 
 Still clings, and we have not made good the loss 
 That outraged faith has entered in his name. 
 Ah, when shall come love s courage to be strong! 
 Tell me, O Lord tell me, O Lord, how long 
 Are we to keep Christ writhing on the cross! 
 
 Calvary 
 EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON 
 
 109 
 
/ glorified thee on earth, having accomplished 
 the work which thou hast given me to do. 
 
 From Bethlehem to Calvary, the Saviour s journey 
 
 lay; 
 Doubt, unbelief, scorn, fear and hate beset Him day 
 
 by day, 
 But in His heart He bore God s love that brightened 
 
 all the way. 
 
 O er the Judean hills He walked, serene and brave of 
 
 soul, 
 Seeking the beaten paths of men, touching and making 
 
 whole, 
 Dying at last for love of man, on Calvary s darkened 
 
 knoll. 
 
 He went with patient steps and slow, as one who scat 
 ters seed; 
 
 Like a fierce hunger in His heart, He felt the world s 
 great need, 
 
 And the negations Moses gave He changed to loving 
 deed. 
 
 From Bethlehem to Calvary the world still follows on, 
 Even as the halt and blind of old along His path were 
 
 drawn; 
 Through Calvary s clouds they seek the light that led 
 
 Him to the dawn. 
 
 From Bethlehem to Calvary 
 
 MEREDITH NICHOLSON 
 no 
 
Truly this man was the Son of God. 
 
 After the shameful trial in the hall, 
 
 The mocking and the scourging, and the pain 
 Of Peter s words; to Herod, and again 
 
 To Pilate s judgment-seat, the royal pall, 
 
 The cross itself, the vinegar and gall; 
 
 The thieves close by, discipleship proved vain, 
 The scoffing crowd, His mother s tears like rain, 
 
 There came one moment, bitterest of all. 
 
 Yet in that cry, when flesh and spirit failed, 
 Last effort of the awful way He trod, 
 Which shook the earth, nor left the temple veiled, 
 
 In that exceeding great and bitter cry 
 
 Was conquest. The centurion standing by 
 Said, Truly this man was the Son of God. 
 
 The Ninth Hour 
 
 CAROLINE HAZARD 
 
 And when Peter thought thereon, he wept. 
 
 Peter and James and John, 
 The sad tale runneth on 
 All slept and Thee forgot; 
 One said he knew Thee not, 
 
 Peter and James and John, 
 The sad tale runneth on 
 I am that one, the three; 
 
 Thus haye I done to Thee, 
 ill 
 
Under a garden wall, 
 
 I lay at evenfall; 
 
 I waked. Thou calledst me; 
 
 I had not watched with Thee. 
 
 Peter and James and John, 
 The sad tale runneth on 
 By the priest s fagot hot, 
 I said I knew Thee not. 
 
 The little maid spake out: 
 "With Him thou wentest about." 
 "This Man I never met" 
 I hear the cock crow yet. 
 
 Good Friday 
 
 LlZETTE WOODWORTH REESE 
 
 And vrith him they crucify two robbers, 
 one on his right hand, and one on his left. 
 
 Three crosses rose on Calvary against the iron sky, 
 Each with its living burden, each with its human cry. 
 And all the ages watched there, and there were you 
 and I. 
 
 One bore the God incarnate, reviled by man s disdain, 
 Who through the woe he suffered for our eternal gain, 
 With joy of infinite loving assuaged his infinite pain. 
 
 112 
 
On one the thief repentant conquered his cruel doom, 
 Who called at last on Christ and saw his glory through 
 
 the gloom. 
 For him after the torment souls of the blest made room. 
 
 And one the unrepentant bore, who his harsh fate defied. 
 To him, the child of darkness, all mercy was denied; 
 Nailed by his brothers on the cross, he cursed his God 
 and died. 
 
 Ah, Christ, who met in Paradise him who had eyes 
 
 to see, 
 
 Didst thou not greet the other in hell s black agony? 
 And if he knew thy face, Lord, what did he say to 
 thee? 
 
 The Thief on the Cross 
 
 HARRIET MONROE 
 
 And the glory which thou hast given me 
 
 I have given unto them; that they may be one, 
 
 even as we are one. 
 
 Thanks to Saint Matthew, who had been 
 At mass-meetings in Palestine, 
 We know whose side was spoken for 
 When Comrade Jesus had the floor. 
 
 "Where sore they toil and hard they lie, 
 Among the great unwashed dwell I; 
 The tramp, the convict, I am he; 
 
 Cold-shoulder him, cold-shoulder me." 
 113 
 
By Dives door, with thoughtful eye, 
 He did to-morrow prophesy; 
 "The kingdom s gate is low and small; 
 The rich can scarce wedge through at all." 
 
 "A dangerous man," said Caiaphas; 
 "An ignorant demagogue, alas! 
 Friend of low women, it is he 
 Slanders the upright Pharisee." 
 
 For law and order, it was plain, 
 For Holy Church, he must be slain. 
 The troops were there to awe the crowd, 
 And violence was not allowed. 
 
 Their clumsy force with force to foil 
 His strong, clean hands he would not soil. 
 He saw their childishness quite plain 
 Between the lightnings of his pain. 
 
 Between the twilights of his end, 
 He made his fellow-felon friend; 
 With swollen tongue and blinding eyes, 
 Invited him to Paradise. 
 
 Ah, let no local him refuse! 
 Comrade Jesus hath paid his dues. 
 Whatever other be debarred, 
 Comrade Jesus hath his red card. 
 
 Comrade Jesus 
 
 SARA N. CLEGHORN 
 114 
 
Verily I say unto you, 
 
 that one of you shall betray me. 
 
 Mary, the Christ long slain, passed silently, 
 Following the children joyously astir 
 Under the cedrus and the olive-tree, 
 Pausing to let their laughter float to her. 
 Each voice an echo of a voice more dear, 
 She saw a little Christ in every face; 
 When lo, another woman, gliding near, 
 Yearned o er the tender life that filled the place. 
 And Mary sought the woman s hand and spoke: 
 "I know thee not, yet know thy memory tossed 
 With all a thousand dreams their eyes evoke 
 Who bring to thee a child beloved and lost. 
 
 "I, too, have rocked my little one. 
 
 O He was fair! 
 
 Yea, fairer than the fairest sun, 
 
 And like its rays through amber spun 
 
 His sun-bright hair. 
 
 Still I can see it shine and shine." 
 
 "Even so," the woman said, "was mine." 
 
 "His ways were ever darling ways," 
 
 And Mary smiled, 
 
 "So soft, so clinging! Glad relays 
 
 Of love were all His precious days. 
 
 My little child! 
 
 My infinite star! my music fled!" 
 
 "Even so was mine," the woman said. 
 115 
 
Then whispered Mary: "Tell me, thou, 
 
 Of thine." And she: 
 
 "O mine was rosy as a bough 
 
 Blooming with roses, sent, somehow, 
 
 To bloom for me! 
 
 His balmy fingers left a thrill 
 
 Within my breast that warms me still." 
 
 Then gazed she down some wilder, darker hour, 
 And said, when Mary questioned, knowing not: 
 "Who art thou, mother of so sweet a flower?" 
 "I am the mother of Iscariot." 
 
 Motherhood 
 
 AGNES LEE 
 
 And the women, who had come with him 
 out of Galilee, followed after, 
 and beheld the tomb. 
 
 There was a trampling of horses from Calvary 
 Where the armed Romans rode from the mountain 
 side; 
 
 Yet riding they dreamed of the soul that could ride free 
 Out of the bruised breast and the arms nailed wide. 
 
 There was a trampling of horses from Calvary, 
 And the long spears glittered in the night; 
 
 Yet riding they dreamed of the will that dared to be, 
 When the head fell and the heavens were rent with 
 light. 
 
 116 
 
The eyes that closed over sleep like folded wings 
 And the sad mouth that kissed death with the cry 
 
 "Father, forgive them," silently these things, 
 They remembered, riding down from Calvary. 
 
 And Joseph, when the sick body was lowered slowly, 
 Folded it in a white cloth without seam, 
 
 The indomitable brow, inflexible and holy, 
 
 And the sad breast that held the immortal dream, 
 
 And the feet that could not walk, and the pierced 
 
 hand, 
 And the arms that held the whole world in their 
 
 embrace; 
 
 But Mary, beside the cross-tree, could not under 
 stand, 
 Looking upon the tired, human face. 
 
 The Mother 
 JOHN HALL WHEELOCK 
 
 Henceforth all generations 
 shall call me blessed. 
 
 Mary smiled on her little Son, 
 
 "Now, why hast Thou left Thy play?" 
 
 "But to touch thy hands with my hands, Mother, 
 Lest sometime there comes a day 
 
 When I may not close them within my own, 
 Though they fall as hurt doves may." 
 
 117 
 
Mary smiled on her little Son, 
 
 "Now blind wouldst Thou have me go 
 
 That mine eyes Thou hast closed with kisses twain?" 
 "My Mother, I may not know, 
 
 But I fear a day when they look on pain 
 And I may not close them so." 
 
 Mary smiled on her little Son, 
 
 Close, close in her arms pressed He; 
 "O Mother, my Mother, my heart on thine 
 
 Lest sometime a day may be 
 When I may not comfort or make it whole, 
 
 Though it break for love of me." 
 
 Now think you that on Calvary hill 
 
 Whereon her Son was slain 
 She felt upon her eyes that touch 
 
 That veiled them unto pain, 
 And filled her groping hands, and bade 
 
 Her torn heart beat again? 
 
 The Ballad of the Comforting 
 
 THEODOSIA GARRISON 
 
 And 7, if I be lifted from the earth, 
 will draw all men unto myself. 
 
 The eve of Golgotha had come, 
 
 And Christ lay shrouded in the garden Tomb; 
 
 Among the olives, oh, how dumb, 
 
 How sad the sun incarnadined the gloom! 
 
 118 
 
The hill grew dim the pleading cross 
 Reached empty arms toward the closing gate. 
 Jerusalem, oh, count thy loss! 
 Oh, hear ye! hear ye! ere it be too late! 
 
 Reached bleeding arms but how in vain! 
 The murmurous multitude within the wall 
 Already had forgot His pain 
 To-morrow would forget the cross and all! 
 
 They knew not Rome, before its sign, 
 
 Bending her brow bound with the nation s threne, 
 
 Would sweep all lands from Nile to Rhine 
 
 In servitude unto the Nazarene. 
 
 Nor knew that millions would forsake 
 Ancestral shrines great with the glow of time, 
 And lifting up its token shake 
 
 with thrill of love or battle s crime. 
 
 With empty arms aloft it stood: 
 
 Ah, Scribe and Pharisee, ye builded well! 
 
 The cross emblotted with His blood 
 
 Mounts, highest Hope of men, against earth s hell! 
 
 The Empty Cross 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 119 
 
Ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow 
 shall be turned into joy. 
 
 There is a legend somewhere told 
 Of how the skylark came of old 
 
 To the dying Saviour s cross, 
 And circling round that form of pain 
 Poured forth a wild, lamenting strain, 
 
 As if for human loss. 
 
 Pierced by those accents of despair, 
 Upon the tiny mourner there 
 
 Turning his fading eyes, 
 The Saviour said, "Dost thou so mourn 
 And is thy fragile breast so torn, 
 
 That man, thy brother, dies? 
 
 "O er all the world uplifted high, 
 We are alone here, thou and I; 
 
 And near to heaven and thee 
 I bless thy pity-guided wings! 
 I bless thy voice the last that sings 
 
 Love s requiem for me. 
 
 "Sorrow no more shall fill thy song; 
 
 These frail and fluttering wings grown strong, 
 
 Thou shalt no longer fly 
 Earth s captive nay, but boldly dare 
 The azure vault, and upward bear 
 
 Thy transports to the sky!" 
 120 
 
Soon passed the Saviour; but the lark, 
 Close hovering near Him in the dark, 
 
 Could not his grief abate; 
 And nigh the watchers at the tomb, 
 Still mourned through days of grief and gloom, 
 
 With note disconsolate. 
 
 But when to those sad mourners came, 
 
 In rose and amethyst and flame, 
 The Dawn Miraculous, 
 
 Song in which sorrow had no part 
 
 Burst from the lark s triumphant heart- 
 Sweet and tumultuous! 
 
 An instant, as with rapture blind, 
 He faltered; then, his Lord to find, 
 
 Straight to the ether flew, 
 Rising where falls no human tear, 
 Singing where still his song we hear 
 
 Piercing the upper blue! 
 
 The Lark 
 FLORENCE EARLE COATES 
 
 I am the Way. 
 
 Three roads led out of Calvary. 
 
 The first was broad and straight, 
 That Pilate and great Caiaphas 
 
 Might ride thereon in state. 
 
 121 
 
The second was the felons road, 
 
 Cruel and hard to tread 
 For those who bore the cross s load, 
 
 For those whose footsteps bled. 
 
 The third road slunk through mean defiles, 
 
 Fearing the open sky; 
 And Judas crept the dreadful miles 
 
 To Calvary thereby. 
 
 The highroad up to Calvary 
 
 Was blotted from the land; 
 Where Judas hid, the jackal cries 
 
 By thorn-cursed drifts of sand. 
 
 But that poor road the felons went 
 
 How fair it now appears, 
 Smoothed wide by myriads penitent 
 
 And flower-set by their tears! 
 
 The Blessed Road 
 CHARLES BUXTON GOING 
 
 There was the true light, even the light 
 which lighteth every man. 
 
 Out of the dark we come, nor know 
 
 Into what outer dark we go. 
 
 Wings sweep across the stars at night, 
 
 Sweep and are lost in flight, 
 
 And down the star-strewn windy lanes the sky 
 
 IS empty as before the wings went by. 
 122 
 
We dare not lift our eyes, lest we should see 
 The utter quiet of eternity; 
 So, in the end, we come to this: 
 Christ-Mary s kiss. 
 
 We cannot brook the wide sun s might, 
 We are alone and chilled by night; 
 We stand, atremble and afraid, 
 Upon the small worlds we have made; 
 Fearful, lest all our poor control 
 Should turn and tear us to the soul; 
 A dread, lest we should be denied 
 The price we hold our ragged pride; 
 So in the end we cast them by 
 For a gaunt cross against the sky. 
 
 To those who question is the fine reward 
 
 Of the brave heart who fights with broken sword 
 
 In the dark night against an unseen enemy; 
 
 There is not any hope of victory. 
 
 While sweat is sweet and earthly ways and toil, 
 
 The touch of shoulders, scent of new-turned soil, 
 
 Striving itself amid the thrusting throng, 
 
 And love that comes with white hands strong; 
 
 But on itself the long path turns again, 
 
 To find at length the hill of pain. 
 
 Such only do we know and see; 
 Starlight and evening mystery, 
 Sunlight on peaks and dust-red plain, 
 Thunder and the quick breath of rain, 
 123 
 
Stirring of fields and all the lovely things 
 
 That season after season brings; 
 
 Young dawn and quiet night 
 
 And the earth s might. 
 
 But all our wisdom and our wisdom s plan 
 
 End in the lonely figure of a Man. 
 
 Via Crucis 
 MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT 
 
CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 
 
And they shall kill him, 
 
 and the third day he shall be raised up. 
 
 It was a night of calls and far replies, 
 A night of trembling for that Serpent head 
 In gulfs that were before the eldest dead 
 A night of whispering haste along the skies, 
 Prayer, and a wondering down of seraph eyes; 
 While stilled Jerusalem, washed in the moon s light, 
 Lay like a brood of sepulchers, ghost-white. 
 
 The dark was dying silverly, that strange, 
 Still hour when Earth is falling toward the day 
 That hour of spacious silence and delay 
 When all things poise upon the hinge of change. 
 The guardsmen had grown silent on their round, 
 Their fire was sinking, when a crash of sound 
 Darkness a reel of Earth a rush of light 
 Cleft rocks then scent of aloes on the night! 
 
 Their faces turned to faces of the dead, 
 
 Their spears fell clamoring terribly as they fled. 
 
 And He stood risen in the guarded place, 
 
 With empire in his gesture on his face 
 127 
 
The hush of muted music and the might 
 That drew the stars down on the ancient night. 
 
 Tall in the first-light, mystical and pale, 
 He stood as one who dares and cannot fail, 
 As some high conscript of the Bright Abodes, 
 As one still called to travel on wild roads 
 In Love s divine adventure his white face 
 Hushed with heroic purpose for the race; 
 Yet wistful of the men who should deny Him, 
 And wistful of the years that should belie Him. 
 
 With peace of heart the blind world could not break, 
 He took a path the young leaves keep awake. 
 Glad of the day come back and loving all, 
 He passed across the morning, felt the cool, 
 Sweet, kindling air blown upward from the pool. 
 A burning bush was reddening by the wall; 
 An oleander bough was full of stirs, 
 Struck by the robes of unseen messengers. 
 
 The hills broke purpling, as the sun s bright edge 
 Pushed slowly up behind a rocky ledge: 
 The hovering dome of the Temple, gray and cold, 
 Burned out with sudden, unexpected gold. 
 A light wind silvered up the olive slope, 
 And all the world was wonder and wild hope! 
 
 The Garden of the Sepulcher 
 
 EDWIN MARKHAM 
 
 128 
 
Said I not unto thee, that, if thou believedst, 
 thou shouldst see the glory of God? 
 
 Christ said to Martha by her brother s grave, 
 I am the resurrection and the life 
 And with what troubled thoughts her mind was rife! 
 
 The life, He said, and yet He freely gave 
 
 His life, and saving others would not save 
 Himself. The resurrection? Chuza s wife 
 Had seen Him in the tomb at end was strife, 
 
 And o er her anguish swept, a mighty wave. 
 
 And yet her firm assurance kept her faith, 
 And her reply, the fervent I believe, 
 Had not His voice raised Lazarus from death, 
 
 Had not the grave released its four days prey? 
 A foretaste of the resurrection day 
 She had to bid her wait, and not to grieve. 
 
 Martha 
 CAROLINE HAZARD 
 
 Father, forgive them; 
 
 for they know not what they do. 
 
 I was a Roman soldier in my prime; 
 Now age is on me and the yoke of time. 
 I saw your Risen Christ, for I am he 
 Who reached the hyssop to Him on the tree; 
 And I am one of two who watched beside 
 The Sepulcher of Him we crucified. 
 129 
 
All that last night I watched with sleepless eyes; 
 Great stars arose and crept across the skies. 
 The world was all too still for mortal rest, 
 For pitiless thoughts were busy in the breast. 
 The night was long, so long, it seemed at last 
 I had grown old and a long life had passed. 
 Far off, the hills of Moab, touched with light, 
 Were swimming in the hollow of the night. 
 I saw Jerusalem all wrapped in cloud, 
 Stretched like a dead thing folded in a shroud. 
 
 Once in the pauses of our whispered talk 
 I heard a something on the garden walk. 
 Perhaps it was a crisp leaf lightly stirred 
 Perhaps the dream-note of a waking bird. 
 Then suddenly an angel burning white 
 Came down with earthquake in the breaking light, 
 And rolled the great stone from the Sepulcher, 
 Mixing the morning with a scent of myrrh. 
 And lo, the Dead had risen with the day: 
 The Man of Mystery had gone his way! 
 
 Years have I wandered, carrying my shame; 
 Now let the tooth of time eat out my name. 
 For we, who all the wonder might have told, 
 Kept silence, for our mouths were stopt with gold. 
 
 A Guard of the Sepulcher 
 
 EDWIN MARKHAM 
 
 130 
 
Jesus saith unto her, Mary! 
 
 At dawn she sought the Saviour slain, 
 
 To kiss the spot where He had lain 
 
 And weep warm tears, like spring-time rain; 
 
 When lo, there stood, unstained of death, 
 A man that spoke with low sweet breath; 
 And "Master!" Mary answereth. 
 
 From out the far and fragrant years 
 How sweeter than the songs of seers 
 That tender offering of tears! 
 
 Mary Magdalen 
 
 RICHARD BURTON 
 
 She turneih and saith unto him, Rabboni, 
 which is to say, Teacher. 
 
 Rabboni, in the garden sweet 
 Kneel I enraptured at Thy feet. 
 Thyself transfigured walkest here. 
 Might such a change in me appear! 
 Shall death alone illumine me? 
 Nay, Soul, that were a travesty. 
 Only living man can praise; 
 Then touch me with Thy living rays. 
 
 Rabboni 
 BARBARA PEATTIE ERSKINE 
 
 131 
 
Mary Magdalene cometh and telleth the disciples, 
 I have seen the Lord. 
 
 She brake the box, and all the house was filled 
 With waftures from the fragrant store thereof, 
 
 While at His feet a costlier rose distilled 
 The bruised balm of penitential love. 
 
 And lo, as if in recompense of her, 
 
 Bewildered in the lingering shades of night, 
 
 He breaks anon the sealed sepulcher, 
 
 And fills the world with rapture and with light. 
 
 The Recompense 
 
 J. B. TABB 
 
 And your heart shall rejoice, 
 
 and your joy no one takcth away from you. 
 
 What though the Flowers in Joseph s Garden grew 
 Of rarest perfume and of fairest hue, 
 That morn when Magdalene hastened through 
 Its fragrant, silent paths? 
 
 She caught no scent of budding almond tree; 
 Her eyes, tear-blinded still from Calvary, 
 Saw neither lily nor anemone 
 
 Naught save the Sepulcher. 
 132 
 
But when the Master whispered "Mary," lo! 
 The Tomb was hid; the Garden all ablow; 
 And burst in bloom the Rose of Jericho 
 From that day "Mary s Flower." 
 
 The Sepulcher in the Garden 
 
 JOHN FINLEY 
 
 Was not our heart burning within us, 
 while he spake to us in the way ? 
 
 Triumphant morn whose first ray had such might 
 That Life and Love, which passed beyond the ken 
 And ministering care of mortal men, 
 
 Upon this holy day could reunite! 
 
 O Blessed sun, which saw the wondrous sight, 
 The glad rebirth of primal time, as when 
 The radiant sons of morn in thousands ten 
 
 Rejoiced at that great word, Let there be light. 
 
 The first word when the tomb was newly rent 
 Was to a grieving woman gently said; 
 With two sad men He walked, the day far spent, 
 
 And how their heavy hearts within them burned 
 As comforted into the inn they turned, _ 
 And He was known to them in breaking bread! 
 
 Easter 
 CAROLINE HAZARD 
 
 133 
 
/ ascend unto my Father and your Father, 
 and my God and your God. 
 
 In the gray dawn they left Jerusalem, 
 And I rose up to follow after them. 
 He led toward Bethany by the narrow bridge 
 Of Kedron, upward to the olive ridge. 
 Once on the camel path beyond the City, 
 He looked back, struck at heart with pain and pity- 
 Looked backward from the two lone cedar trees 
 On Olivet, alive to every breeze 
 Looked in a rush of sudden tears, and then 
 Went steadily on, never to turn again. 
 
 Near the green quiets of a little wood 
 The Master halted silently and stood. 
 The figs were purpling, and a fledgling dove 
 Had fallen from a windy bough above, 
 And lay there crying feebly by a thorn, 
 Its little body bruised and forlorn. 
 He stept aside a moment from the rest 
 And put it safely back into the nest. 
 
 Then mighty words did seem to rise in Him 
 And die away; even as white vapors swim 
 A moment on Mount Carmel s purple steep, 
 And then are blown back rainless to the deep. 
 And once He looked up with a little start: 
 Perhaps some loved name passed across his heart, 
 Some memory of a road in Galilee, 
 Or old familiar rock beside the Sea. 
 
 134 
 
And suddenly there broke upon our sight 
 A rush of angels terrible with light 
 The high same host the Shepherds saw go by, 
 Breaking the starry night with lyric cry 
 A rush of angels, wistful and aware, 
 That shook a thousand colors on the air 
 Colors that made a music to the eye 
 Glories of lilac, azure, gold, vermilion, 
 Blown from the air-hung delicate pavilion. 
 
 And now his face grew bright with luminous will: 
 The great grave eyes grew planet-like and still. 
 Yea, in that moment, all his face, fire-white, 
 Seemed struck out of imperishable light. 
 Delicious apprehension shook his spirit, 
 With song so still that only the heart could hear it. 
 A sense of something sacred, starry, vast, 
 Greater than earth, across his spirit passed. 
 
 Then with a stretching of his hands to bless, 
 A last unspeakable look that was caress, 
 Up through the vortice of bright cherubim 
 He rose until the august form grew dim 
 Up through the blue dome of the day ascended, 
 By circling nights of seraphim befriended. 
 He was uplifted from us, and was gone 
 Into the darkness of another dawn. 
 
 The Ascension 
 
 EDWIN MARKHAM 
 
WHAT THINK YE OF 
 CHRIST? 
 
And we have believed and know 
 that thou art the Holy One of God. 
 
 If Jesus Christ is a man 
 
 And only a man, I say 
 That of all mankind I cleave to him 
 
 And to him will I cleave alway. 
 
 If Jesus Christ is a god, 
 And the only God, I swear 
 
 I will follow Him through heaven and hell, 
 The earth, the sea, and the air! 
 
 The Song of a Heathen (Sojourning in Galilee, A.D. 32) 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER 
 
 For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, 
 but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty. 
 
 Oh He who walked with fishermen 
 
 Was man of men in Galilee; 
 He told us endless wonder-tales, 
 
 His laugh was hale and free. 
 139 
 
The water changed He into wine 
 To please a poor man s company; 
 
 I saw Him walk one wretched night 
 Upon a troubled sea. 
 
 And when the rabble cried for blood, 
 
 I saw him nailed upon a tree; 
 He showed how a brave man could die; 
 
 The Prince of men was He. 
 
 And rough men, we, who never wept, 
 
 Wept when they nailed Him to the tree; 
 
 Oh, He was more than man, who walked 
 With us in Galilee. 
 
 A Fisherman Speaks, Anno Domini, thirty-three 
 
 SCHARMEL IRIS 
 
 To him be the glory 
 
 both now and forevermore, Amen. 
 
 Ha we lost the goodliest fere o all 
 For the priests and the gallows tree? 
 Aye lover he was of brawny men, 
 O ships and the open sea. 
 
 When they came wi a host to take Our Man 
 
 His smile was good to see. 
 
 "First let these go!" quo our Goodly Fere, 
 
 "Or I ll see ye damned," says he. 
 140 
 
Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears 
 And the scorn of his laugh rang free, 
 "Why took ye not me when I walked about 
 Alone in the town?" says he. 
 
 Oh we drank his "Hale" in the good red wine 
 
 When we last made company, 
 
 No capon priest was the Goodly Fere, 
 
 But a man o men was he. 
 
 I ha seen him drive a hundred men 
 Wi a bundle o cords swung free, 
 That they took the high and holy house 
 For their pawn and treasury. 
 
 They ll no get him a in a book, I think, 
 Though they write it cunningly; 
 No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere, 
 But aye loved the open sea. 
 
 If they think they ha snared our Goodly Fere 
 They are fools to the last degree. 
 "I ll go to the feast," quo our Goodly Fere, 
 "Though I go to the gallows tree. 
 
 "Ye ha seen me heal the lame and blind, 
 And wake the dead," says he, 
 "Ye shall see one thing to master all: 
 Tis how a brave man dies on the tree." 
 141 
 
A son of God was the Goodly Fere 
 That bade us his brothers be. 
 I ha* seen him cow a thousand men. 
 I have seen him upon the tree. 
 
 He cried no cry when they drave the nails 
 And the blood gushed hot and free, 
 The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue 
 But never a cry cried he. 
 
 I ha seen him cow a thousand men 
 
 On the hills o Galilee, 
 
 They whined as he walked out calm between, 
 
 Wi his eyes like the gray o the sea. 
 
 Like the sea that brooks no voyaging 
 With the winds unleashed and free, 
 Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret 
 Wi twey words spoke* suddently. 
 
 A master o men was the Goodly Fere, 
 A mate of the wind and sea; 
 If they think they ha slain our Goodly Fere 
 They are fools eternally. 
 
 I ha seen him eat o the honey-comb 
 Sin they nailed him to the tree. 
 
 Ballad of the Goodly Fere 
 Simon Zelotes Speaketh This Somewhat after the Crucifixion 
 
 EZRA POUND 
 
 142 
 
For to me to live is Christ. 
 
 How long have you been waiting? Not so long? 
 
 I m glad of that. You found the place at once. 
 
 Well, there s the Campus Martius, when you re there 
 
 You see above this Collis Hortulorum, 
 
 A good place for two men like us to meet: 
 
 Here s where luxurious souls have their abodes. 
 
 That s Sallust s garden there. They do not care 
 
 So much about us as some others do. 
 
 There is a tolerance comes from being rich, 
 
 An urbane soul is fashioned by a villa. 
 
 Our faith is not to these a wicked thing, 
 
 A deadly superstition as some deem it. 
 
 But, Mark, my son, there s Rome below you there 
 
 What temples, arches, under the full moon! 
 
 Here let us sit beside this chestnut tree, 
 
 And while the soft wind blows out of the sea 
 
 Let s finish up our talks. You must know all 
 
 Wherewith to write the story ere I die 
 
 Beneath the wrath of Nero. See that light, 
 
 Faint like a little candle I passed there. 
 
 That s one of our poor men, they make us lamps 
 
 Wherewith to light the streets and Nero s gardens. 
 
 We shall be lamps they ll wish to snuff in time. 
 
 We met to-night at one Silvanus house. 
 
 And I was telling them about the night 
 
 When in Gethsemane you followed Him, 
 
 Having a cloth about your naked body. 
 
 And how you laid hold on him, left the cloth 
 
 And fled. But when you write this, you can say 
 
 143 
 
"A certain young man," leaving out your name, 
 You may not wish to have it known twas you 
 Who ran away, as I would like to hide 
 How I fell into sleep and failed to watch, 
 And afterwards declared I knew Him not: 
 But as for me, omit no thing. The world 
 Will gain by seeing me rise out of weakness 
 To strength, and out of fear to boldness. Time 
 Has wrought his wonders in me, I am rock, 
 Let hell beat on me, I shall stand from now. 
 
 Then don t forget the first man that He healed. 
 
 There s deep significance in this, my son, 
 
 That first of all He d take an unclean spirit 
 
 And cast it out. Then second was my mother 
 
 Cured of her fever, just as you might say: 
 
 Be rid of madness, things that tear and plague, 
 
 Then cool you of the fever of vain life. 
 
 But don t forget to write how he would say 
 
 "Tell no man of this," say that and no more. 
 
 Though I may think he said it lest the crowds 
 
 That followed him would take his strength for 
 
 healing, 
 
 And leave no strength for words, let be and write 
 "Tell no man of this" simply. For you see 
 These madmen quieted, these lepers cleaned 
 Had soon to die, all now are dead, perhaps. 
 And with them ends their good. But what he said 
 Remains for generations yet to come, with power 
 To heal and heal. My son, preserve your notes, 
 
 Of what I ve told you, even above your life. 
 
 144 
 
Make many copies lest one script be lost. 
 I shall not to another tell it all 
 As I have told it you. 
 
 But as for me 
 
 What merit have I that I saw and said 
 "Thou art the Christ"? One sees the thing he sees. 
 That is a matter of the eye behold 
 What is the eye? 
 
 Let s think of eyes this way: 
 The lawyers said there s nothing in this fellow. 
 His family beheld no wonder in him. 
 Have Mary Magdalen and I invented 
 These words, this story? who are we to do so,- 
 A fallen woman and a fisherman! 
 Or did this happen? Did we see these things? 
 Did Mary see him risen and did I? 
 
 No, Mark, my son, this is the truth, so write, 
 Preserve this story taken from my lips. 
 My work is almost done. Rome is the end 
 Of all my labors, I have faith The Eye 
 Will give me other eyes for other worlds! 
 
 Why should I not believe this? Not all seasons 
 
 Are for unfolding. In the winter time 
 
 You cannot see the miracle of birth, 
 
 Of germinating seeds, of blossoming. 
 
 Why not then that one time for seeing Death 
 
 145 
 
Go up like mist before the rising sun? 
 
 And in this single instance of our Lord 
 
 Arising from the grave, see all men rise, 
 
 And all men s souls discovered in his soul, 
 
 That quality and essence, strength made clear? 
 
 And why not I the seer of these things? 
 
 Why should there be another and not I? 
 
 And I declare to you that untold millions 
 
 In centuries untold will live and die 
 
 By these words which you write, as I have told 
 
 them. 
 
 And nation after nation will be moulded, 
 As heated wax is moulded, by these words. 
 And spirits in their inmost power will feel 
 Change and regeneration through them well, what 
 
 then? 
 
 Do you say God is living, that this world, 
 These constellations move by law, that all 
 This miracle of life and light is held 
 In harmony, and that the soul of man 
 Moves not in order, but that it s allowed 
 To prove an anarch to itself, sole thing 
 That turns upon itself, sole thing that s shown 
 The path that leads no whither? is allowed 
 To feed on falsehood? that it s allowed 
 To wander lawless to its ruin, fooled 
 By what it craves, by what it feels, by eyes 
 That swear the truth of what they see? by words 
 Which you will write from words I have affirmed? 
 And do you say that Life shall prove the foe 
 
 Of life, and Law of law? Or do you say 
 
 146 
 
The child s eyes see reality which see 
 
 The poppy blossoms or the mother s breast, 
 
 And this Rome and these stars do not exist 
 
 Because the child s eyes cannot compass them, 
 
 And get their image? Shall we trust our vision 
 
 Mounting to higher things, or only trust 
 
 Those things which all have seen except the souls 
 
 Who have not soared, or risen to the gift 
 
 Of seeing what seemed walking trees grow clear 
 
 As men or angels? No, it cannot be. 
 
 Man s soul, the chiefest flower of all we know, 
 
 Is not the toy of Malice or of Sport. 
 
 It is not set apart to be betrayed, 
 
 Or gulled to its undoing, left to dash 
 
 Its hopeless head against this rock s exception, 
 
 No water for its thirst, no Life to feed it, 
 
 No law to guide it, though this universe 
 
 Is under Law, no God to mark its steps, 
 
 Except the God of worlds and suns and stars, 
 
 Who loves it not, loves worlds and suns and stars, 
 
 And them alone, and leaves the soul to pass 
 
 Unfathered lets me have a madman s dream 
 
 And gives it such reality that I 
 
 Take fire and light the world, convincing eyes 
 
 Left foolish to believe. It cannot be ... 
 
 Go write what I have told you, come what will 
 I m going to the catacombs to pray. 
 
 The Gospel of Mark 
 
 EDGAR LEE MASTERS 
 
 147 
 
And not a few of them that practised 
 magical arts, brought their books together, 
 and burned them in the sight of all. 
 
 Hyacinthus, your money, the idol you ordered is finished. 
 May the grace of Diana be with you in strength un- 
 diminished. 
 
 Behold how the breast of it glitters, as if it were wrought 
 
 in with stipples. 
 The Ephesian goddess is Nature and these are her 
 
 bountiful nipples. 
 
 So then do I fear for my trade? No, never! It s past 
 
 my conceiving. 
 There ll be work for the artist while gods change to 
 
 win our believing 
 
 Come on then, you babblers and madmen from Jewry 
 
 and tell us and show us 
 Yes, come with your tumult the like of which never 
 
 was known in Corinth or Troas. 
 
 They crowd in the markets and temples and gabble 
 
 a story that palters. 
 Well, I whistle and hammer the silver, a maker of 
 
 statues and altars. 
 
 Who says I am wroth lest in Samothrace, Lystra and 
 
 Delos 
 The craft of the maker of images fail through the speech 
 
 of these fellows? 
 
 148 
 
And the temple of Artemis perish? Oh, well, however 
 
 they hate us 
 Can they burn it as once it was burned by the wretch 
 
 Herostratus? 
 
 But we built it again and carved it all newly in beauty 
 
 and wonder 
 Destroy it, oh man, who was crazed by lightning and 
 
 roaring of thunder! 
 
 Oh virgin Diana, if virgin, what virgin whose altar 
 
 is older! 
 If matron what breasts hang with milk for the eyes 
 
 of her temples beholder! 
 
 For centuries gone when these Jews prayed to ser 
 pents of bronze and to calves that were golden, 
 
 In Ephesus, Arcady, Athens, our reverent love was 
 beholden 
 
 To the goddess of prophecy, music, the lyre, of light, 
 inspiration, 
 
 Who guarded and watches the city and lays the foun 
 dation 
 
 Of nations and laws. What works we have done, yea 
 
 still we would heed her 
 And look at your barbarous ark in your temple of 
 
 jewels and cedar! 
 
 149 
 
What is our pollution, our idols, our sacrificed things 
 
 which are strangled? 
 I ask you already divided in turbulent parties who 
 
 wrangled 
 
 Concerning salvation of God to the faith of the un- 
 
 circumcision 
 In Cyprus and Paphos, where poets of love keep the 
 
 Hellenic vision. 
 
 I am filled with my loathing! Oh keep me a Greek 
 
 though you make me a whoreson, 
 When the worship of beauty is dead you may pare 
 
 off my foreskin. 
 
 When the symbol is dead which I mould to Diana 
 
 our goddess 
 I ll retire to the country of Nod, no matter where Nod is. 
 
 It will live when your temples are built, if any are 
 
 builded, 
 And Jesus in silver is nailed on a cross which is gilded. 
 
 And touching this thing is it different to worship a 
 
 man or abstraction? 
 Or an idol of silver or stone? go talk to your spirit s 
 
 distraction ! 
 
 Areopagus listened to Paul, I am told, for Athens is 
 spending 
 
 Her time, as of old, in weighing new things and at 
 tending. 
 
 150 
 
They heard him in silence! Let his arguments pass 
 uncorrected 
 
 Why, Plato had told us of Er from the dead resur 
 rected ! 
 
 Now, mark me! For showing the wisdom, compas 
 sion of poets and sages 
 
 That silence like lightning will aureole Paul to the end 
 of the ages. 
 
 Oh Athens, who set up that shrine, do you think it 
 
 was just superstition 
 Which carved for all passers to see that profoundest 
 
 inscription : 
 
 To the unknown God? Do you think it was cow 
 ardice even? 
 
 Make altars and gods as you will, unknown is the 
 planeted heaven. 
 
 And we who are richest in gods have exhausted all 
 
 thought in creating 
 Both symbols and shapes for interpreted loving and 
 
 hating, 
 
 Still sense the Unknown, though in blindness, in love 
 as in duty 
 
 Would worship it most the Unknown is the ulti 
 mate beauty. 
 
 151 
 
Yes, Athens who set up the altar and chiseled the 
 
 worshipful letters 
 To the Unknown God what ignorance fastened with 
 
 fetters 
 
 Did you loosen, oh wonder of Tarsus, how help their 
 
 unknowing 
 Who told them he dwelt not in temples, nor heeded 
 
 the flowing 
 
 Of prayers from men s hearts the Giver of life and 
 
 of all things, and seeing 
 He is lord of the heavens, in whom we are living and 
 
 having our being. 
 
 So quoting our poet who centuries since with the 
 
 monarch Gonatus 
 Lived and wrote Phaenomena, known to the Greeks 
 
 as Aratus. 
 
 And yet, Hyacinthus, I pity this Paul for profoundest 
 
 compassion 
 Of Jesus before him. This sky and this earth I can 
 
 fashion 
 
 Through mystical wonder or fear to the Sphinx or 
 
 the Minotaur dreaded. 
 There s Persephone dying and rising, and Cerberus 
 
 the dog many-headed. 
 
 152 
 
We have thought it all through! Yet I say if a virtue 
 
 Elysian 
 Besides in the doctrine I ll leave off the goddess Ephe- 
 
 sian ; 
 
 Sell my tools, shut my shop, worship God in a way 
 
 that is safer, 
 Make the Unknown the known! Have they shown 
 
 you a magical wafer? 
 
 The Apology of Demetrius 
 
 EDGAR LEE MASTERS 
 
 He that loveth his life shall lose it; 
 but he that hatcth his life in this world 
 shall keep it unto life eternal. 
 
 The lengthening shadows of the cedar trees 
 Have blended into twilight, and the sun 
 Has plunged in glorious gold precipitance 
 Beyond the dim crest of the western hills, 
 Bearing with it the day s disquietudes; 
 And now the stars, that lamp the feet of God, 
 Are lighted, and night s purple silences 
 Steal gently round me fraught with memories. 
 
 Twas such an hour as this long, long ago 
 Yet seeming yesterday he came to me, 
 My little son, in joyous travail born 
 Out there across the hills in Bethlehem, 
 153 
 
Where we who journeyed southward to be taxed 
 Strangers in our own father s land had found 
 No shelter in the crowded khan, and shared, 
 Perforce, a grotto with the stabled kine. 
 
 Ah, how it all conies back again to me! 
 
 The court-yard, in the flickering torchlight, filled 
 
 With huddled travelers sleeping neath the sky, 
 
 The kneeling camels of a caravan, 
 
 The patient asses dozing by the wall, 
 
 A smell of roasting meat at little fires, 
 
 The shouts of melon-sellers, the low drone 
 
 Of reverend elders bending at their prayers, 
 
 Barking of street-dogs, porters blasphemies, 
 
 The laughter of a girl, the mellow flute 
 
 Of some rapt lover, and the tinkling tune 
 
 Of sheep-bells forward moving through the dark. 
 
 And then the hour supreme, wherein my soul 
 
 Clomb the dark pinnacles of pain, and death 
 
 Grappled with life through whirling seoned years, 
 
 But fled at length and left the Miracle. 
 
 They laid him there beside me on the hay, 
 A wee pink being in his world s first sleep; 
 My arm was round about him and his breath 
 Was warm with life on my exultant breast, 
 And they whose winged watch is set to keep 
 Ward in the valley lands of Heaven looked down 
 Not up that night to find their Paradise. 
 All weak with labor and soul s happiness 
 I lay beneath the sapphire tent of skies, 
 154 
 
And in my heart I made a little prayer 
 Of thanks that flew up to the throne of God 
 On swift dove pinions of unuttered song; 
 And as I prayed, lo, upon loops of stars 
 Night s velvet curtainings were lifted up, 
 A wondrous light turned all the world to rose, 
 And down the skies swept singing seraphim 
 In mighty echoes of my little prayer. 
 
 Oh, can it be that threescore years have marched 
 In troubled caravan across the waste 
 Of desert life since then, and can it be 
 That I, who sit here in mine eventide, 
 White with the snows of sorrow and of time, 
 Was once a bright tressed girl who heard the choirs 
 Of Heaven rejoice that she had borne a son? 
 Why, I can feel that little heart beat still 
 Close to my own, the touch of little hands 
 Warm and caressing on this withered breast; 
 Still I can hear the first low wail that marked 
 His woe s beginning and the tortured path 
 That he should tread in mighty gentleness, 
 With pain and anguish, til His love supreme 
 And terrible meekness, overcoming death, 
 Should lead Him conqueror to sit with God, 
 Pleading for sinful men in Paradise. 
 
 To-day I stole into the synagogue 
 And heard a rabbi read the sacred scroll: 
 How that my lord, Isaiah, said of old, 
 Thy Maker is thy husband, he hath called thee 
 155 
 
As a forsaken woman, spirit grieved; 
 God, for a little moment hides His face 
 From thee, but with His loving kindness soon 
 And tender mercies, shall He gather thee. 
 Then was I comforted, and peace displaced 
 The turmoil in my heart, and minded me 
 Of that great promise Gabriel bore from God 
 And the immeasurable fruitage of His word, 
 The life and death and glory of my son. 
 
 So in the shades of life and night I sit, 
 
 Under the sheltering arbor of the dark 
 
 That curves above, vined o er with trellised stars, 
 
 Waiting my spirit bridegroom, and the sound 
 
 Of that loved voice long silent save in dreams 
 
 Calling across the vibrant firmament, 
 
 Mary, Mother Mary, come to Me. 
 
 Mused Mary in Old Age 
 
 GEORGE M. P. BAIRD 
 
 The hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you 
 shall think that he offered service unto God. 
 
 The monarch looked out from his throne 
 Where the Bosphorus blends with the Horn, 
 And he saw how at evening and morn 
 The people would prayerfully bow 
 To figures of bronze and of stone; 
 
 And he cried, as he smote on his brow, 
 156 
 
"They worship the image alone; 
 Forgot is the Godhead behind. 
 Their prayers are but words on the wind 
 That hither and thither are blown." 
 
 Then an edict went forth from the south 
 To the north of the empire afar, 
 And a herald with clamorous mouth 
 Proclaimed it in hamlet and town, 
 Till the folk as by rumors of war 
 Were stirred, or by famine and drouth, 
 For from niche and from altar and shrine 
 The Christ and the Virgin divine 
 Must be cast desecratingly down. 
 
 So rage slumbered hot in the heart 
 
 In Constan tine s city, the old; 
 
 And murmurs waxed loud in the mart 
 
 And the tongues of the people grew bold. 
 
 But the monarch was firm; and the more, 
 
 When he heard of the stir in the state, 
 
 Was his spirit alert and elate, 
 
 And naught in his rashness sufficed 
 
 But to cry to the guard at the door, 
 
 "Thou knowest the image of Christ 
 
 Surmounting the palace s gate, 
 
 Go thou, take thy weapon and smite, 
 
 In the emperor s name and the right!" 
 
 The guardsman was pallid with fear, 
 
 For he knew how the Christ was adored, 
 157 
 
But he only could bow and obey, 
 
 Passing forth on his perilous way 
 
 With his hand gripping tight on his sword. 
 
 By the gate was a woman in prayer, 
 
 Who, when she beheld his intent, 
 
 Cried loud to the heralding air, 
 
 Till there gathered around her a score. 
 
 There were crones in decrepitude bent, 
 
 And mothers, and maids who were fair, 
 
 To beg and beseech and implore. 
 
 But he gave little heed to their cries 
 
 For he dreaded the emperor s ire; 
 
 He saw not the light in their eyes, 
 
 The baleful and dangerous fire. 
 
 The ladder was scaled, and his hand 
 
 Uplifted the merciless brand; 
 
 A glimmer of steel and a blow, 
 
 And the image fell clanging below 
 
 In the midst of the sorrowful band. 
 
 In a moment their grief was forgot, 
 And a frenzy possessed them instead. 
 Afar from the doom-fated spot 
 Would the terrified guardsman have fled; 
 But they seized him in madness, and tore 
 His limbs in their maniac might, 
 And dabbled their hands in his gore, 
 And shouted in eager delight 
 That Christ was avenged evermore. 
 
 A tale of the shadowy past 
 Obscured by the mists of the years, 
 
 158 
 
Where, down all the distance, one hears 
 Fanatical echoes of strife. 
 Oh, why, from the first to the last, 
 Should His name, that the spirit reveres, 
 Be blent with the clashing of spears 
 Where frenzy and slaughter are rife! 
 
 Love, love was the creed that He taught, 
 And peace, perfect peace, everywhere; 
 The past that is dead is as naught, 
 The present and future are fair. 
 Could we but see over the tomb 
 The flowers of Christ s tenderness bloom, 
 Grand, grand were the ages to come, 
 For the voices of strife would be dumb! 
 
 The Bronze Christ 
 
 CLINTON SCOLLARD 
 
 Unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, 
 Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. 
 
 So long, so long ago I had been slain 
 
 By blindness malice-led, I scarce could tell 
 
 What soul it was that trod in weary pain 
 The vestibule of hell. 
 
 Only at times a sick dream came to me 
 
 That once I had been Baldur and erstwhile 
 The gods in heaven had rejoiced to see 
 
 The glory of my smile. 
 
 159 
 
In the Dim Country s languor I had lost 
 The way of smiling, and all genial words 
 
 Fell dumb at the near breath of Hela s frost 
 Like winter-smitten birds. 
 
 In that gray land of failure, we who died 
 
 Inglorious deaths, nourished our shadowy shame. 
 
 Meeting we turned our downward gaze aside 
 Before the Stranger came. 
 
 Across our hush I heard his quick feet ring, 
 For like a warrior fresh from fight he trod. 
 
 I looked him in the eyes, remembering 
 That I had been a god 
 
 Remembering that promise of a throne 
 Upon the ashes of the burnt-out earth, 
 
 A perfect kingdom rising all mine own 
 From worthlessness to worth. 
 
 A sudden laughter shook the still dank air 
 Like the clear causeless laughter of a child. 
 
 Over the dusky meadows, bleak and bare, 
 All the Dim Country smiled, 
 
 And one went singing in the gloom "Behold, 
 Baldur comes down to the dishonored dead. 
 
 What, shall we find the ways too murk and cold 
 That the Bright God can tread? 
 
 160 
 
"Here in this land of dreams that are no more 
 And spent desires, he laughs, and in his eyes 
 
 In forms more glorious than once they bore 
 We see our dead hopes rise." 
 
 "Ashes of earth upon hell s midden cast, 
 
 From these," I cried, " shall Baldur build his throne- 
 But, oh, the wasted ages that I passed 
 Unknowing and unknown 
 
 "Nay, was I Baldur till I met thine eyes? 
 
 Thine be the throne!" But, lo, he was not there,- 
 Only a wakened world, and a surprise 
 
 Of morning in the air. 
 
 Baldur in Niflheim 
 AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 
 
 A light for revelation 
 to the Gentiles. 
 
 Before Christ left the Citadel of Light, 
 To tread the dreadful way of human birth, 
 His shadow sometimes fell upon the earth 
 
 And those who saw it wept with joy and fright. 
 
 "Thou art Apollo, than the sun more bright!" 
 
 They cried. "Our music is of little worth, 
 But thrill our blood with thy creative mirth 
 
 Thou god of song, thou lord of lyric might!" 
 
 161 
 
O singing pilgrim! who could love and follow 
 Your lover Christ, through even love s despair. 
 
 You knew within the cypress-darkened hollow 
 The feet that on the mountain are so fair. 
 
 For it was Christ that was your own Apollo, 
 And thorns were in the laurel on your hair. 
 
 His Laureate 
 
 JOYCE KILMER 
 
 There can be neither Jew nor Greek; 
 for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Man of my own people, I alone 
 Among these alien ones can know thy face, 
 
 1 who have felt the kinship of thy race 
 Burn in me as I sit where they intone 
 
 Thy praises, those who, striving to make known 
 A God for sacrifice, have missed the grace 
 Of thy sweet human meaning in its place, 
 Thou who art of our blood-bond and our own. 
 
 Are we not sharers of thy Passion? Yea, 
 
 In spirit-anguish closely by thy side 
 
 We have drained the bitter cup, and, tortured, felt 
 
 With thee the bruising of the heavy welt. 
 
 In every land is our Gethsemane. 
 
 A thousand times have we been crucified. 
 
 The Jew to Jesus 
 
 FLORENCE KIPER FRANK 
 
 162 
 
That they may know the mystery 
 of God, even Christ. 
 
 Dear intimate of little folk, if now 
 
 You seem too incommensurably great, 
 
 Is it because tis easier to abate 
 
 Our faith than equal it with yours? to allow 
 
 You the divine advantage, than avow 
 
 That other human hearts are designate 
 
 To share your mastery and free estate? 
 
 To you as God, we, unbelieving bow 
 
 To you that, verily divine, have trod 
 
 The way to godhood; who, being simple, wed 
 
 Your love to Life s Almighty Will, and lo, 
 
 Upon the instant, like a river-head 
 
 Upspringing in your flesh, began to flow 
 
 Anew the world-creating power of God. 
 
 To Jesus 
 
 HENRY BRYAN BINNS 
 
VII 
 THE WORLD S JESUS 
 
Go ye into all the world, and preach 
 the gospel to the whole creation. 
 
 Out from the doomed Jerusalem, in days of long ago, 
 By two and two they sallied forth to lands of sun or 
 
 snow; 
 And each slow century since then has seen this loyal 
 
 clan 
 Break out to bear the blessed news to all the sons of 
 
 man. 
 
 Beside the slim, tall temples, where the tawny rivers run, 
 
 They set their tents where shining stars looked down 
 on Babylon. 
 
 Through Memphis linteled gates they passed, and sang 
 a holy psalm, 
 
 Where carven gods looked down on them in imme 
 morial calm. 
 
 Their bare feet pressed the beaten shore, beneath dark 
 
 Nubia s cliffs; 
 They ate the corn from out their scrips, where Kar- 
 
 nak s hieroglyphs 
 Tell how the world s gray mother, dead, beside old 
 
 Nilus lies, 
 
 And held the lifted cross before Assyria s glazing eyes. 
 
 167 
 
Down to imperial Rome they drew, o er the Cam- 
 
 pagna s turf, 
 Nor halted where the rocky shore flung back the 
 
 roaring surf, 
 But spread the sails, and, unafraid, across the seething 
 
 main 
 Steered where the wild Atlantic lashed the pillared 
 
 front of Spain. 
 
 In single file, on lonely paths, they walked through 
 forests dim, 
 
 And stirred the Saxon silence with their solemn matin 
 hymn; 
 
 The bloom of Irish primroses fell on their wandering 
 feet, 
 
 And heather on the Scottish hills made all their gar 
 ments sweet. 
 
 Beside the stormy Northern capes they taught the 
 
 Vikings bold 
 And in the English meadows green the wondrous tale 
 
 they told; 
 Amid the cairns, among the oaks, they reared the holy 
 
 crypt, 
 And dared to tell of dying Love, where Druid altars 
 
 dripped. 
 
 And still o er all the earth they fare, where er a soul 
 
 has need; 
 My heart leaps up and calls to them: O Brothers 
 
 mine! God speed! 
 
 168 
 
What time within the jungle deep ye watch the day 
 light die, 
 
 Or on some lonely Indian steep see dawn flush all the 
 sky. 
 
 Far is the cry from here to there, yet hearken when 
 
 we say: 
 Ye are the brethren of the Book; in Khartoum or 
 
 Cathay, 
 Tis ye who make the record good, tis ye, O royal 
 
 souls ! 
 Who justify the Chronicles, writ in the ancient scrolls. 
 
 O Missionaries of the Blood! Ambassadors of God! 
 Our souls flame in us when we see where ye have 
 
 fearless trod 
 At break of day; your dauntless faith our slackened 
 
 valor shames, 
 And every eve our joyful prayers are jeweled with your 
 
 names. 
 
 The Missionaries 
 
 ROBERT MC!NTYRE 
 
 That the love wherewith thou lovest me 
 may be in them and I in them! 
 
 What means this waiting throng? 
 Whence have these weary wayworn wanderers come? 
 Why rises, in strange tongues, the expectant hum, 
 Like that tense under-song 
 
The joyful Jordan voicej in the spring 
 Till Hermon hearkens, leaning grandly down, 
 And wearing still his glimmering snowy crown? 
 Soon will these murmuring lips with ardor sing, 
 And soon these lifted faces, wan or brown, 
 Glow into worship that is rapturing. 
 Back will be thrown the consecrated door, 
 And then these feet, from many a distant shore, 
 Be privileged to press the hallowed floor. 
 
 Why they have come, the hardy mountaineer 
 
 From Lebanon s cedars and their checkered shade? 
 
 The merchant and the snowy-mantled maid 
 
 Who hold great Nilus dear? 
 
 Why have they come, the men with restless eyes 
 
 And pallid cheeks that tell of norland skies? 
 
 Why have they come, the Latin and the Greek? 
 
 Do pilgrims thus this sanctuary seek 
 
 Because tis here 
 
 For year on forty year 
 
 The red earth drank 
 
 The deluged blood of Paynim and of Frank? 
 
 Or do they surge to see 
 
 The antique symmetry 
 
 Of springing arch and carven pillar fine, 
 
 In this old holy house of Constantine? 
 
 Ah, no! ah, no! To them the memory 
 Of war is not, and monarchs play no part 
 In any thought that stirs an eager heart. 
 They have no eyes to see 
 
 170 
 
A single graceful groining. What care they 
 
 If here, upon a bygone Christmas-day 
 
 The King-Crusader, Baldwin, took his crown! 
 
 Or what to them the saint of blest renown 
 
 In yonder sepulcher, now crumbling clay! 
 
 Their patient feet one precious spot would press, 
 
 Their yearning eyes would lovingly caress 
 
 The time-dulled silver star 
 
 Sunk deep within the pavement, footf all- worn : 
 
 "Here, of the Virgin Mary, Christ was born" 
 
 They read, these pilgrims who have plodded far. 
 
 They read and pass and ponder. Few can see 
 
 The tiny chapel and the dim-lit shrine, 
 
 And feel no thrill, despite the mummery, 
 
 Of something more divine 
 
 Within the breast than ever pulsed before. 
 
 Then let us pilgrims be 
 
 Upon this sacred day we all adore! 
 
 Although our mortal feet touch not the floor, 
 
 Although our mortal eyes may not behold, 
 
 Our spirits may take flight, 
 
 And with immortal sight 
 
 Stand where the prayerful wise-men stood of old 
 
 In ecstasy of adoration, when 
 
 They saw the Saviour of the sons of men. 
 
 The Christmas Pilgrimage (Bethlehem) 
 
 CLINTON SCOLLARD 
 
 171 
 
We have the mind of Christ. 
 
 I cannot put the Presence by, of Him, the Crucified, 
 Who moves men s spirits with His love as doth the 
 
 moon the tide; 
 Again I see the Life He lived, the godlike Death He 
 
 died. 
 
 Again I see upon the cross that great Soul-battle 
 
 fought, 
 
 Into the texture of the world the tale of which is wrought 
 Until it hath become the woof of human deed and 
 
 thought, 
 
 And, joining with the cadenced bells that all the morn 
 ing fill, 
 
 His cry of agony doth yet my inmost being thrill, 
 Like some fresh grief from yesterday that tears the 
 heart-strings still. 
 
 I cannot put His presence by, I meet Him everywhere; 
 
 I meet Him in the country town, the busy market- 
 square ; 
 
 The Mansion and the Tenement attest His presence 
 there. 
 
 Upon the funneled ships at sea He sets His shining feet; 
 The Distant Ends of Empire not in vain His Name 
 
 repeat, 
 And, like the presence of a rose, He makes the whole 
 
 world sweet. 
 
 172 
 
He comes to break the barriers down raised up by 
 barren creeds; 
 
 About the globe from zone to zone, like sunlight He 
 proceeds ; 
 
 He comes to give the World s starved heart the per 
 fect love it needs, 
 
 The Christ, Whose friends have played Him false, 
 
 Whom Dogmas have belied, 
 Still speaking to the hearts of men tho shamed and 
 
 crucified, 
 The Master of the centuries Who will not be denied! 
 
 The Voice of Christmas 
 
 HARRY KEMP 
 
 And the Word became flesh, and 
 dwelt among us. 
 
 On Christmas Eve, so runs the marvellous tale, 
 Heaven once flashed through her amethystine veil, 
 And while this raptured earth beheld and heard 
 Those star-eclipsing choirs, the Eternal Word 
 Put on our flesh to bear our human bale. 
 
 Faint with the sweets such sanctities exhale, 
 Deep-brooding Doubt lets fall his winnowing flail, 
 And feels his weary heart divinely stirred 
 
 On Christmas Eve. 
 173 
 
For sudden lustres play o er hill and dale, 
 The silence thrills with music, mothers pale 
 Smile like Madonnas, and the Christ, unblurred 
 By mists of time, unslain, unsepulchred, 
 Life s cup reconsecrates to Holy Grail 
 On Christmas Eve. 
 
 On Christmas Eve 
 
 KATHARINE LEE BATES 
 
 / press toward the goal unto the prize 
 
 of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 
 
 If I had been in Palestine 
 
 A poor disciple I had been. 
 
 I had not risked or purse or limb 
 
 All to forsake, and follow Him. 
 
 But with the vast and wondering throng 
 I too had stood and listened long; 
 I too had felt my spirit stirred 
 When the Beatitudes I heard. 
 
 With the glad crowd that sang the psalm, 
 I too had sung, and strewed the palm; 
 Then slunk away in dastard shame 
 When the High Priest denounced His name. 
 But when my late companions cried 
 "Away! let Him be crucified!" 
 I would have begged, with tremulous 
 
 Pale lips, "Release Him unto us!" 
 174 
 
Beside the cross when Mary prayed, 
 
 A great way off I too had stayed; 
 
 Not even in that hour had dared, 
 
 And for my dying Lord declared; 
 
 But beat upon my craven breast, 
 And loathed my coward heart, at least, 
 To think my life I dared not stake 
 And beard the Romans for His sake. 
 
 Judge me, Lord! 
 
 SARAH N. CLEGHORN 
 
 Who shall separate us from 
 the love of Christ ? 
 
 I 
 
 O man of light and lore! 
 
 Do you mean that in our day 
 
 The Christ hath passed away; 
 
 That nothing now is divine 
 
 In the fierce rays that shine 
 
 Through every cranny of thought; 
 
 That Christ as He once was taught 
 
 Shall be the Christ no more? 
 
 That the Hope and Saviour of men 
 
 Shall be seen no more again; 
 
 That, miracles being done, 
 
 Gone is the Holy One? 
 
 And thus, you hold, this Christ 
 
 For the past alone sufficed; 
 
 175 
 
From the throne of the hearts of the world 
 
 The Son of God shall be hurled, 
 
 And henceforth must be sought 
 
 New prophets and kings of thought; 
 
 That the tenderest, truest word 
 
 The heart of sorrow hath heard 
 
 Shall sound no more upon earth; 
 
 That he who hath made of birth 
 
 A dread and sacred rite; 
 
 Who hath brought to the eyes of death 
 
 A vision of heavenly light, 
 
 Shall fade with our failing faith; 
 
 He who saw in children s eyes 
 
 Eternal paradise; 
 
 Who made the poor man s lowly 
 
 Labor a service holy, 
 
 And sweat of work more sweet 
 
 Than incense at God s feet; 
 
 Who turned the God of Fear 
 
 To a Father, bending near; 
 
 Who looked through shame and sin 
 
 At the sanctity within; 
 
 Whose memory, since he died, 
 
 The earth hath sanctified 
 
 Hath been the stay and the hold 
 
 Of millions of lives untold, 
 
 And the world on its upward path 
 
 Hath led from crime and wrath; 
 
 You say that this Christ hath passed 
 
 And we cannot hold him fast? 
 
 176 
 
II 
 
 Ah, no! If the Christ you mean 
 
 Shall pass from this time, this scene, 
 
 These hearts, these lives of ours, 
 
 Tis but as the summer flowers 
 
 Pass but return again, 
 
 To gladden the world of men. 
 
 For he, the only, the true, 
 
 In each age, in each waiting heart, 
 
 Leaps into life anew. 
 
 Tho* he pass, he shall not depart. 
 
 Behold him now where he comes! 
 
 Not the Christ of our subtle creeds, 
 
 But the lord of our hearts, of our homes, 
 
 Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs; 
 
 The brother of want and blame, 
 
 The lover of women and men, 
 
 With a love that puts to shame 
 
 All passions of mortal ken; 
 
 Yet of all of women born 
 
 His is the scorn of scorn; 
 
 Before whose face do fly 
 
 Lies and the love of a lie; 
 
 Who from the temple of God 
 
 And the sacred place of laws 
 
 Drives forth, with smiting rod, 
 
 The herds of ravening maws. 
 
 Tis he, as none other can, 
 Makes free the spirit of man, 
 
 177 
 
And speaks, in darkest night, 
 
 One word of awful light 
 
 That strikes through the dreadful pain 
 
 Of life, a reason sane 
 
 That word divine which brought 
 
 The universe from naught. 
 
 Ah, no, thou life of the heart, 
 Never shalt thou depart! 
 Not till the leaven of God 
 Shall lighten each human clod; 
 Not till the world shall climb 
 To thy height serene, sublime, 
 Shall the Christ who enters our door 
 Pass to return no more. 
 
 The Passing of Christ 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER 
 
 Every good gift and every perfect 
 gift is from above, coming 
 down from the Father of lights. 
 
 Lord, I am just a little boy 
 
 Born one day like You, 
 And I ve got a mother dear 
 
 And a birthday too. 
 But my birthday comes in spring, 
 
 When the days are long, 
 And the robin in the tree 
 
 Wakens me with song. 
 
 178 
 
Since the birds are all away, 
 
 Lord, when You are born, 
 Let Your angels waken me 
 
 On Your birthday morn. 
 
 Lord, I m just a little boy, 
 
 Hidden in the night: 
 Let Your angels spy me out 
 
 Long before it s light. 
 I would be the first to wake 
 
 And the first to raise 
 In this quiet home of ours 
 
 Songs of love and praise. 
 You shall hear me first, dear Lord, 
 
 Blow my Christmas horn; 
 Let Your angels waken me 
 
 On Your birthday morn. 
 
 A Child s Christmas Song 
 
 T. A. DALY 
 
 This is the victory that overcometh 
 the world, even our faith. 
 
 All these on whom the sacred seal was set, 
 They could forsake thee while thine eyes were wet. 
 Brother, not once have I believed in thee, 
 Yet having seen I cannot once forget. 
 
 179 
 
I have looked long into those friendly eyes, 
 And found thee dreaming, fragile, and unwise. 
 Brother, not once have I believed in thee, 
 Yet have I loved thee for thy gracious lies. 
 
 One broke thee with a kiss at eventide, 
 
 And he that loved thee well has thrice denied. 
 
 Brother, I have no faith in thee at all, 
 
 Yet must I seek thy hands, thy feet, thy side. 
 
 Behold that John that leaned upon thy breast; 
 His eyes grew heavy and he needs must rest. 
 I watched unseen through dark Gethsemane 
 And might not slumber, for I loved thee best. 
 
 Peace thou wilt give to them of troubled mind, 
 
 Bread to the hungry, spittle to the blind. 
 
 My heart is broken for my unbelief, 
 
 But that thou canst not heal though thou art kind. 
 
 They asked one day to sit beside thy throne. 
 I made one prayer, in silence and alone. 
 Brother, thou knowest my unbelief in thee. 
 Bear not my sins, for thou must bear thine own. 
 
 Even he that grieves thee most "Lord, Lord," he saith, 
 So will I call on thee with my last breath! 
 Brother, not once have I believed in thee, 
 
 Yet I am wounded for thee unto death. 
 
 An Unbeliever 
 
 ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH 
 
 180 
 
He came and preached peace 
 to you that were far off. 
 
 It is said the Bedouins cry, on the Syrian hills, a clear 
 Loud summons to War, and the tribes far distant 
 
 hearken and hear, 
 
 So wondrous rare is the air, so crystal the atmosphere. 
 Their call is to arms; but One, in the centuries long 
 
 ago, 
 Spake there for Peace, in tones that were marvellous 
 
 sweet and low, 
 And the ages they hear Him yet, and His voice do 
 
 the nations know. 
 
 On Syrian Hills 
 
 RICHARD BURTON 
 
 Beloved, let us love one another t 
 for love is of God. 
 
 My father prayed as he drew a bead on the graycoats, 
 Back in those blazing years when the house was 
 
 divided. 
 Bless his old heart! There never was truer or 
 
 kinder; 
 Yet he prayed, while hoping the ball from his clumsy 
 
 old musket 
 Might thud to the body of some hot-eyed young 
 
 Southerner 
 And tumble him limp in the mud of the Vicksburg 
 
 trenches. 
 
 181 
 
That was my father, serving the Lord and his 
 
 country, 
 
 Praying and shooting whole-heartedly, 
 Never a doubt. 
 And now what about 
 Me in my own day of battle? 
 Could I put my prayers behind a slim Springfield 
 
 bullet? 
 
 Hardly, except to mutter: "Jesus, we part here. 
 My country calls for my body, and takes my soul 
 
 also. 
 Do you see those humans herded and driven against 
 
 me? 
 
 Turn away, Jesus, for I ve got to kill them. 
 Why? Oh, well, it s the way of my fathers, 
 And such evils bring some vast, vague good to my 
 
 country. 
 
 I don t know why, but to-day my business is killing, 
 And my gods must be luck and the devil till this 
 
 thing is over. 
 Leave me now, Lord. Your eye makes me slack in 
 
 my duty." 
 
 My father could mix his prayers and his shooting, 
 And he was a rare true man in his generation. 
 Now, I m fairly decent in mine, I reckon; 
 Yet if I should pray like him, I d spoil it by laughing. 
 What is the matter? 
 
 My Father and I 
 CHARLES BADGER CLARK, JR. 
 
 182 
 
Christ also suffered, the righteous 
 for the unrighteous. 
 
 They have dressed me up in a soldier s dress, 
 
 With a rifle in my hand, 
 And have sent me bravely forth to shoot 
 
 My own in a foreign land. 
 
 Oh, many shall die for the fields of their homes, 
 
 And many in conquest wild, 
 But I shall die for the fatherland 
 
 That murdered my little child. 
 
 How many hundreds of years ago 
 
 The nations wax and cease! 
 Did the God of our fathers doom us to bear 
 
 The flaming message of peace! 
 
 We are the mock and the sport of time! 
 
 Yet why should I complain! 
 For the Jew that they hung on the bloody cross, 
 
 He also died in vain. 
 
 The Jewish Conscript (in Russia) 
 
 FLORENCE KIPEB FRANK 
 
 Far be it from me to glory, save 
 
 in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 At the high ridge 
 
 Of a wide war-stricken realm 
 
 There stands an ancient wooden Christ. 
 
 183 
 
Hollow the tottering image towers, 
 
 Eyeless, and rotten, and decrepit there, 
 
 His smile a cruel twist. 
 
 Within the empty heart of this old Christ 
 
 Small stinging insects build their nests; 
 
 And iron-hearted soldiers cross themselves 
 
 The while they pass 
 
 The hollow-hearted figure by. 
 
 I think there is no Christ left there 
 In all those carnage-loving lands 
 Save only this of hollow wood 
 With wasp nests 
 Hiving in its neart. 
 
 The Wooden Christ 
 
 MARTHA FOOTE CROW 
 
 / will pray the Father, and he shall 
 give you another Comforter, that he 
 may be with you forever. 
 
 Under our curtain of fire, 
 
 Over the clotted clouds, 
 
 We charged, to be withered, to reel 
 
 And despairingly wheel 
 
 When the bugles bade us retire. 
 
 From the terrible odds. 
 
 As we ebbed with the battle-tide, 
 Fingers of red-hot steel 
 Suddenly closed on my side. 
 184 
 
I fell, and began to pray. 
 I crawled on my hands and lay 
 Where a shallow crater yawned wide; 
 Then, I swooned . . . 
 
 When I woke it was yet day. 
 Fierce was the pain of my wound; 
 But I saw it was death to stir, 
 For fifty paces away 
 Their trenches were. 
 In torture I prayed for the dark 
 And the stealthy step of my friend 
 Who, staunch to the very end, 
 Would creep to the danger-zone 
 And offer his life as a mark 
 To save my own. 
 
 Night fell. I heard his tread, 
 Not stealthy, but firm and serene, 
 As if my comrade s head 
 Were lifted from that scene 
 Of passion and pain and dread; 
 As if my comrade s heart 
 In carnage took no part; 
 As if my comrade s feet 
 Were set on some radiant street 
 Such as no darkness could haunt; 
 As if my comrade s eyes 
 No deluge of flame could surprise, 
 No death and destruction daunt, 
 185 
 
No red-beaked bird dismay, 
 
 Nor sight of decay. 
 
 Then in the bursting shells dim light, 
 
 I saw he was clad in white. 
 
 For a moment I thought that I saw the smock 
 
 Of a shepherd in search of his flock. 
 
 Alert were the enemy, too, 
 
 And their bullets flew 
 
 Straight at a mark no bullet could fail: 
 
 For the seeker was tall and his robe was bright; 
 
 But he did not flee nor quail. 
 
 Instead, with unhurrying stride, 
 
 He came, 
 
 And, gathering my tall frame, 
 
 Like a child in his arms . . . 
 
 Again I swooned; 
 
 And awoke 
 
 From a blissful dream 
 
 In a cave by a stream. 
 
 My silent comrade had bound my side. 
 
 No pain now was mine, but a wish that I spoke, 
 
 A mastering wish to serve this man 
 
 Who had ventured through hell my doom to revoke, 
 
 As only the truest of comrades can. 
 
 I begged him to tell me how best I might aid him, 
 
 And urgently prayed him 
 
 Never to leave me, whatever betide; 
 
 When I saw he was hurt 
 
 Shot through the hands that were clasped in prayer! 
 
 Then, as the dark drops gathered there 
 
 186 
 
And fell in the dirt, 
 
 The wounds of my friend 
 
 Seemed to me such as no man might bear. 
 
 Those bullet-holes in the patient hands 
 
 Seemed to transcend 
 
 All horrors that ever these war-drenched lands 
 
 Had known or would know till the mad world s end. 
 
 Then suddenly I was aware 
 
 That his feet had been wounded, too, 
 
 And, dimming the white of his side 
 
 A dull stain grew. 
 
 "You are hurt, White Comrade!" I cried. 
 
 His words I already foreknew: 
 
 "These are old wounds, * said he, 
 
 "But of late they have troubled me." 
 
 The White Comrade 
 ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER 
 
 Let not your heart be troubled, 
 neither let it be afraid. 
 
 Perhaps they had no time to think of Him, 
 Those comfortable men, when business urged; 
 And where the dusty whirl of pleasure surged 
 The memory of His face no doubt grew dim 
 But when they turned from safety and content, 
 Unflinchingly laid by 
 The tools of their prosperity, and went 
 To suffer and to die 
 
 187 
 
For just a thought, a disembodied dream 
 
 That some call Nothing when they knew the 
 
 wrench 
 
 Of raveled nerves, the squalor of the trench, 
 The dying look s reproach, the scarlet steam 
 Of battle hand to hand amid that hell 
 Of agony they looked into the eyes 
 They had not seen, in days when all was well. 
 Out of the marsh of death they saw Him rise 
 In the white robes that gladdened Galilee, 
 Walking the hot red waves of blood and flame 
 As long ago He came 
 To those that laboured on a troubled sea. 
 And they, who had forgotten Him so long, 
 Remembered that those wounded hands were strong 
 And infinitely kind . . 
 O Lord of Love! shall we not understand, 
 Who in our comfort are as grossly blind? 
 We prosper to the height of our desire 
 How should our rich and busy hands require 
 Aught of the Wounded Hand? 
 Till comes a day when we are under fire, 
 Spent, bleeding, stripped of our complacent pride, 
 And beaten to the last extremity, 
 Then, a living presence at our side, 
 White Comrade, we find Thee! 
 
 The White Comrade 
 
 AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 
 
 188 
 
We are compassed about with so great 
 a cloud of witnesses! 
 
 Ours is a dark Easter-tide and a scarlet Spring, 
 But high up at Heaven s gate all the saints sing, 
 Glad for the great companies returning to their King! 
 
 Oh, in youth the dawn s a rose, dusk an amethyst, 
 All the roads from dusk to dawn, gay they wind and 
 
 twist 
 The old road to Paradise, easy it is missed! 
 
 But out on the wet battle-fields, few the roadways 
 
 wind, 
 
 One to grief, one to death, no road that s kind 
 The old road to Paradise, plain it is to find! 
 
 (Martin in his colonel s cloak, Joan in her mail, 
 David in his robe and crown few there be that fail 
 Down the road to Paradise they stand to greet and 
 hail!) 
 
 Where the dark s a terror-thing, morn a hope doubt- 
 tossed, 
 
 Where the lads lie thinking long out in rain and frost, 
 There they find their God again, long ago they lost! 
 
 Where the night comes cruelly, where the hurt men 
 
 moan, 
 Where the crushed forgotten ones whisper prayers 
 
 alone, 
 Christ along the battle-fields comes to lead His own: 
 
 189 
 
Souls that would have withered soon in the hot world s 
 
 glare, 
 Blown and gone like shrivelled things, dusty on the 
 
 air, 
 Rank on rank they follow Him, young and strong and 
 
 fair! 
 
 Ours is a sad Easter-tide, and a woeful day, 
 
 But high up at Heaven s gate the saints are all 
 
 gay, 
 For the old road to Paradise, that s a crowded way! 
 
 The Old Road to Paradise 
 
 MARGARET WIDDEMER 
 
 The Dayspring from on high shall guide 
 our feet in the way of peace. 
 
 Far, far the mountain peak from me 
 Where lone he stands, with look caressing; 
 Yet from the valley, wistfully 
 I lift my dreaming eyes, and see 
 His hand stretched forth in blessing. 
 
 Never bird sings nor blossom blows 
 Upon that summit chill and breathless 
 Where throned he waits amid the snows; 
 But from his presence wide outflows 
 
 Love that is warm and deathless! 
 190 
 
O Symbol of the great release 
 From war and strife! unfailing fountain 
 To which we turn for joy s increase, 
 Fain would we climb to heights of Peace 
 Thy peace upon the mountain! 
 
 The Christ of the Andes 
 
 FLORENCE EARLE COATES 
 
 Thy kingdom come! 
 
 Across the bitter centuries I hear the wail of men: 
 "Oh, would that Jesus Lord, the Christ, would come 
 
 to us again." 
 
 We decorate our altars with a ceremonious pride, 
 With all the outward shows of pomp His worship is 
 
 supplied : 
 Great churches raise their mighty spires to pierce the 
 
 sunlit skies 
 
 While in the shadow of the cross we mutter blas 
 phemies. 
 
 We know we do not do His will who lessoned us to pray, 
 " Our Father grant within our lives Thy Kingdom rule 
 
 to-day." 
 The prayer He taught us once a week we mouth with 
 
 half -shut eye 
 
 While in the charnel-house of words immortal mean 
 ings die. 
 
 Above our brothers frailties we cry "Unclean ! Unclean !" 
 And with the hands that served her shame still stone 
 the Magdalene. 
 
 191 
 
We know within our factories that wan-cheeked women 
 reel 
 
 Among the deft and droning belts that spin from 
 wheel to wheel. 
 
 We know that unsexed childhood droops in dull-eyed 
 drudgery 
 
 The little children that He blessed in far off Galilee, 
 
 Yet surely, Lord, our hearts would grow more merci 
 ful to them, 
 
 If Thou couldst come again to us as once in Bethlehem. 
 
 A Page from America s Psalter 
 
 WILLARD WATTLES 
 
 Suffer the little children, and forbid 
 them not, to come unto me. 
 
 "Christ the Lord is risen!" 
 Chant the Easter children, 
 Their love-moulded faces 
 Luminous with gladness, 
 And their costly raiment 
 Gleaming like the lilies. 
 
 But last night I wandered 
 Where Christ had not risen, 
 Where love knows no gladness, 
 Where the Lord of Hunger 
 Leaves no room for lilies 
 
 And no time for childhood. 
 192 
 
And to-day I wonder 
 Whether I am dreaming; 
 For above the swelling 
 Of their Easter music 
 I can hear the murmur 
 "Suffer all the children." 
 
 Nay, the world is dreaming! 
 And my seeing spirit 
 Trembles for its waking, 
 When their Saviour rises 
 To restore the lilies 
 To the outcast children. 
 
 The Easter Children 
 
 ELSA BARKER 
 
 I came that they may have life, 
 and may have it more abundantly. 
 
 When the Lord of the great and the little, 
 
 The potter whose hand shapes our clay, 
 Sets a child in the midst of the market 
 
 Where the world-peoples chaffer all day, 
 Sets a child with its innocent questions, 
 
 Its flower-face dimpled and fine, 
 In the very heart s core of the clamor, 
 
 A thought of the Maker divine; 
 
 And men, in their lust for dominion, 
 Their madness for silver and gold, 
 Crush the beauty and charm of that spirit, 
 
 Make the flower-face withered and old, 
 196 
 
Bind the hands and feet with a tether 
 That childhood can never untie, 
 
 Deem not that Jehovah unheeding 
 
 Looks down from the heights of the sky. 
 
 He sees, though we think Him unseeing, 
 
 He knows when the factory wheels 
 Grind down the life-blood of children; 
 
 When the poor little bond-servant kneels 
 In the pang of its frightful abasement; 
 
 Though all are deaf to its prayer, 
 There is coming a dark day of judgment, 
 
 And the Lord of the child will be there. 
 
 The child in the midst, as we ve marred it, 
 
 Bent-shouldered, dull-eyed, and a slave, 
 That cringes at word and at fetter, 
 
 That cries for the rest of the grave; 
 With our free flag unfolding above it, 
 
 So free, from the pine to the palm! 
 And our scared pallid children beneath it! 
 
 There s a jar in the lilt of our psalm. 
 
 From the mine where the midnight engulfs it, 
 
 From the mill where the clogged air is thick 
 With the dust of the weaving that chokes it; 
 
 From the home where it s fevered and sick 
 194 
 
With man s toil, when God meant it for gladness, 
 
 The child in the midst of our clay 
 God-moulded, man-marred, calls to heaven 
 
 For the vengeance we re daring this day. 
 
 The Child in the Midst 
 
 MARGARET E. SANGSTER 
 
 Whoso shall receive one such little child 
 in my name, receiveth me. 
 
 O Mary, lend thy Babe to me 
 To hold upon my breast! 
 It cannot be, it cannot be 
 Thy heart would shake his rest. 
 Beneath thy robe I see it leap 
 How in such tumult could he sleep? 
 
 God s Mother, shame upon thee now, 
 So hard and cold to be! 
 And who art thou and who art thou 
 That criest shame on me? 
 A wasted woman, hungering sore 
 For the sweet babe I never bore. 
 
 Now for that waste be thine the shame 
 Thy sentence thou dost speak; 
 And for that hunger thine the blame. 
 Were no lost lambs to seek 
 Where crowds unseeing pass and press 
 No little children motherless? 
 
 195 
 
O Mary, let me seek for such! 
 
 Mine eyes with tears were blind 
 Nay, daughter, seek not overmuch; 
 Go forth and thou shalt find 
 Naked and hungry everywhere 
 The little ones thou didst not bear. 
 
 Wipe clear of useless tears thine eyes, 
 Thy heart of futile dreams. 
 Go forth to face realities 
 One deed of mercy seems 
 To this my Son and Me, more fair 
 Than a whole life of barren prayer. 
 
 Love not in word, but in good sooth; 
 Deserted and defiled, 
 Each little human form in truth 
 Harbours the Eternal Child. 
 Held in thine arms, His eyes of grace 
 Shall open to thy bending face. 
 
 God s Mother, I have been to blame 
 Nay, daughter, no regret. 
 Forget thy blame, forget thy shame 
 Thy very self forget. 
 Give wholly thine awakened heart. 
 My Child hath need of all thou art. 
 
 At Bethlehem 
 AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 
 
 196 
 
Behold what manner of love the Father 
 hath bestowed upon us, that we should 
 be called children of God! 
 
 Thou hast on earth a Trinity, 
 Thyself, my fellow-man, and me: 
 When one with him, then one with Thee: 
 Nor, save together, thine are we. 
 
 To the Christ 
 
 J. B. TABS 
 
 Can the blind 
 guide the blind? 
 
 She called from her cell, 
 "Let me give you a rose," 
 To the cold tract-man 
 In his Sabbath clothes. 
 
 And the tract-man said 
 To the one gone mad, 
 "How can you give 
 What you never had?" 
 
 "As you give Christ," 
 The madwoman said, 
 "While love in your heart 
 Lies cold and dead." 
 
 Madness 
 
 HARRY LEE 
 
 197 
 
// any man cometh unto me, and hateth not 
 . . . his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 
 
 A Christmas gift, oh Lord 
 Some fiery vision, 
 
 Not drowsy promises 
 Of fields Elysian. 
 
 It was but now we came 
 
 Out of the jungle; 
 And how can beasts contrive 
 
 Save botch and bungle? 
 Since half is still the beast 
 
 And half is human, 
 Sorrow must follow hard 
 
 On man and woman. 
 
 But let Thy kindness thrill 
 Through hateful places: 
 
 Our wicked streets are paved 
 With baby faces 
 
 For these, Thy little ones, 
 Strew Christmas graces; 
 
 Let each one have a toy, 
 
 Forget not any 
 And think upon their tears 
 
 The sad too many! 
 198 
 
For their sake come once more 
 
 Down to Thy manger; 
 Once more drive from Thy church 
 
 The money-changer. 
 
 Again where all may see 
 
 Die for us, Master: 
 Because we shrink too much 
 
 From death s disaster, 
 Master, once more die Thou, 
 
 And show us how. 
 
 On Christmas Day 
 GEORGIA WOOD PANGBORN 
 
 To-day if ye shall hear 
 his voice 
 
 Once by an arch of ancient stone, 
 
 Beneath Italian olive-trees 
 (In Pentecostal youth, too prone 
 
 To visions such as these), 
 
 And now a second time, to-day, 
 Yonder, an hour ago! Tis strange. 
 
 The hot beach shelving to the bay, 
 That far white mountain range, 
 
 The motley town where Turk and Greek 
 
 Spit scorn and hatred as I pass; 
 Seraglio windows, doors that reek 
 
 Sick perfume of the mass; 
 199 
 
The muezzin cry from Allah s tower, 
 French sailors singing in the street; 
 
 The Western meets the Eastern power, 
 And mingles this is Crete. 
 
 Tis strange! No wonder and no dread 
 Was on me; hardly even surprise. 
 
 I knew before he raised his head 
 Or fixed me with his eyes 
 
 That it was he; far off I knew 
 
 The leaning figure by the boat, 
 The long straight gown of faded hue; 
 
 The hair that round his throat 
 
 Fell forward as he bent in speech 
 
 Above the naked sailor there, 
 Calking his vessel on the beach, 
 
 Full in the noonday glare. 
 
 Sharp rang the sailor s mallet-stroke 
 Pounding the tow into the seam; 
 
 He paused and mused, and would have spoke, 
 Lifting great eyes of dream 
 
 Unto those eyes which slowly turned 
 
 As once before, even so now 
 Till full on mine their passion burned 
 
 With, "Yes, and is it thou?" 
 200 
 
Then o er the face about to speak 
 Again he leaned; the sunburnt hair, 
 
 Fallen forward, hid the tawny cheek; 
 And I who, for my share, 
 
 Had but the instant s gaze, no more, 
 And sweat and shuddering of the mind, 
 
 Stumbling along the dazzling shore, 
 Until a cool sweet wind 
 
 From far-off Ida s silver caves 
 
 Said, "Stay"; and here I sit the while. 
 
 And all my being, for an hour, 
 
 Has sat in stupor, without thought, 
 
 Empty of memory, love, or power, 
 A dumb wild creature caught 
 
 In toils of purpose not its own! 
 
 But now at last the ebbed will turns; 
 Feeding on spirit, blood, and bone, 
 
 The ghostly protest burns. 
 
 "Yea, it is I, tis I indeed! 
 
 But who art thou, and plannest what? 
 Beyond all use, beyond all need! 
 
 Importunate, unbesought, 
 
 "Unwelcome, unendurable! 
 
 To the vague boy I was before 
 O unto him thou earnest well; 
 
 But now, a boy no more, 
 201 
 
"Firm-seated in my proper good, 
 Clear-operant in my functions due, 
 
 Potent and plenteous of my mood, 
 What hast thou here to do? 
 
 "Yes, I have loved thee love thee, yes; 
 
 But also hear st thou? also him 
 Who out of Ida s wilderness 
 
 Over the bright sea-rim, 
 
 "With shaken cones and mystic dance, 
 
 To Dirce and her seven waters 
 Led on the raving Cory bants, 
 
 And lured the Theban daughters 
 
 "To play on the delirious hills 
 
 Three summer days, three summer nights, 
 Where wert thou when these had their wills? 
 
 How liked thee their delights? 
 
 "Past Melos, Pelos, to the straits, 
 The waters roll their spangled mirth, 
 
 And westward, through Gibraltar gates, 
 To my own under-earth, 
 
 "My glad, great land, which at the most 
 
 Knows that its fathers knew thee; so 
 Will spend for thee nor count the cost; 
 
 But follow thee? Ah, no! 
 202 
 
"Thine image gently fades from earth! 
 
 Thy churches are as empty shells, 
 Dim-plaining of thy words and worth, 
 
 And of thy funerals! 
 
 "But oh, upon what errand, then, 
 Leanest thou at the sailor s ear? 
 
 Hast thou yet more to say, that men 
 Have heard not, and must hear?" 
 
 Passages from Second Coming 
 
 WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 
 
 Lo, I am with you always, even 
 unto the end of the world! 
 
 Loud mockers in the roaring street 
 Say Christ is crucified again: 
 
 Twice pierced His gospel-bearing feet, 
 Twice broken His great heart in vain. 
 
 I hear and to myself I smile, 
 
 For Christ talks with me all the while. 
 
 No angel now to roll the stone 
 
 From off His unawaking sleep, 
 In vain shall Mary watch alone, 
 
 In vain the soldiers vigil keep. 
 203 
 
Yet while they deem my Lord is dead 
 My eyes are on His shining head. 
 
 Ah! never more shall Mary hear 
 That voice exceeding sweet and low 
 
 Within the garden calling clear: 
 
 Her Lord is gone, and she must go. 
 
 Yet all the while my Lord I meet 
 In every London lane and street. 
 
 Poor Lazarus shall wait in vain, 
 
 And Bartimeus still go blind; 
 The healing hem shall ne er again 
 
 Be touched by suffering humankind. 
 
 Yet all the while I see them rest, 
 The poor and outcast, on His breast. 
 
 No more unto the stubborn heart 
 With gentle knocliing shall He plead, 
 
 No more the mystic pity start, 
 
 For Christ twice dead is dead indeed. 
 
 So in the street I hear men say, 
 Yet Christ is with me all the day. 
 
 The Second Crucifixion 
 
 RICHARD LE GALLIENNE 
 
INDEX OF POEMS 
 
 Anger of Christ, The, 93. 
 
 Annunciation, The, 3. 
 
 An Unbeliever, 179. 
 
 Apology of Demetrius, The, 148. 
 
 Ascension, The, 134. 
 
 At Bethlehem, 195. 
 
 At Gethsemane, 105. 
 
 At Jerusalem, 40. 
 
 At Jerusalem, 99. 
 
 At Nazareth, 40. 
 
 At the Manger s Side, 21. 
 
 Baldur in Niflheim, 159. 
 
 Ballad of the Comforting, The, 
 
 117. 
 
 Ballad of the Cross, The, 26. 
 Ballad of the Goodly Fere, 140. 
 Ballad of the Wise Men, A, 19. 
 Ballad of Trees and the Master, 
 
 A, 104. 
 
 Ballad of Wise Men, A, 22. 
 Blessed Road, The, 121. 
 Bronze Christ, The, 156. 
 By the Sea of Galilee, 63. 
 
 Calvary, 109. 
 
 Carpenter s Son, The, 56. 
 
 Cedars of Lebanon, The, 9. 
 
 Child, 41. 
 
 Child in the Midst, A, 193. 
 
 Childless, The, 31. 
 
 Child s Christmas Song, A, 178. 
 
 Christ-child, The, 37. 
 
 Christmas Folk-Song, A, 10. 
 Christmas Pilgrimage, The, 169. 
 Christ of Raphael s Transfigura 
 tion, The, 76. 
 
 Christ of the Andes, The, 190. 
 Christ Scourged, 108. 
 Citizen of the World, 75. 
 Come unto Me, 78. 
 Comrade Jesus, 113. 
 Consolator, 82. 
 Cost of Saving, The, 79. , 
 Country Carol, A, 66. 
 
 Dream of Claudia Procula, The, 
 105. 
 
 Easter, 133. 
 
 Easter at Nazareth, 43. 
 Easter Children, The, 192. 
 Empty Cross, The, 118. 
 
 Fisherman Speaks, A, 139. 
 Fishers, The, 83. 
 Flight into Egypt, The, 35. 
 From Bethlehem to Calvary, 110. 
 From Nazareth, 68. 
 
 Garden of the Sepulchre, The, 
 
 127. 
 
 Gates and Doors, 5. 
 Gennesar, 64. 
 Good Friday, 111. 
 Good Friday Night, 99. 
 Gospel of Mark, The, 143. 
 Guard of the Sepulchre, A, 129. 
 
 205 
 
His Birthday, 17. 
 His Laureate, 161. 
 How He Came, 85. 
 
 In His Steps, 66. 
 In Palestine, 63. 
 In the Carpenter s Shop, 55. 
 
 Jericho, 86. 
 
 Jewish Conscript, The, 183. 
 
 Jew to Jesus, The, 162. 
 
 John, 102. 
 
 Joseph and Mary, 12. 
 
 Joses, the Brother of Jesus, 48. 
 
 Judge Me, O Lord, 174. 
 
 Kings of the East, The, 16. 
 
 Lament, The, 98. 
 
 Lark, The, 120. 
 
 Lazarus, 88. 
 
 Lily, The, 80. 
 
 Little Town, The, 4. 
 
 Lost Word of Jesus, A, 77. 
 
 Madness, 197. 
 
 Madonna of the Carpenter-Shop, 
 
 The, 30. 
 
 Magdalen to Christ, 87. 
 Magi and the Faery Folk, The, 24 
 Martha, 129. 
 Mary at Nazareth, 45. 
 Mary Magdalen, 131. 
 Mary s Quest, 38. 
 Missionaries, The, 167. 
 Mother and Son, 47. 
 Motherhood, 115. 
 Mother, Mary 25. 
 Mother, The, 116. 
 Mount of Beatitudes, The, 69. 
 Murillo s "Holy Family of the 
 
 Little Bird," 44. 
 Mused Mary in Old Age, 153. 
 My Father and I, 181. 
 My Father s Business, 42. 
 My Master, 107. 
 
 Nativity Song, 7, 28. 
 Nativity, The, 36. 
 Nazareth, 36. 
 
 Nazareth Shop, The, 49. 
 Nazareth Town, 53. 
 Nicodemus, 73. 
 Ninth Hour, The, 111. 
 
 Old Road to Paradise, The, 189. 
 On Christmas Day, 198. 
 On Christmas Eve, 173. 
 On Syrian Hills, 181. 
 Out of Egypt Have I Called My 
 Son, 35. 
 
 Page from America s Psalter A 
 
 191. 
 
 Palm Sunday, 96. 
 Palm Sunday in Galilee, 81. 
 Passing of Christ, The, 175 
 Pharisee, The, 70. 
 Playmate, The, 39. 
 Prodigal Son, The, 71. 
 
 Rabboni, 131. 
 Recompense, The, 132. 
 
 Second Coming, 199. 
 
 Second Crucifixion, The, 203. 
 
 Sepulchre in the Garden, The, 132. 
 
 Shadow, The, 52. 
 
 Shepherds, The, 13. 
 
 Song of a Heathen, The, 139. 
 
 Star of Bethlehem, The, 15. 
 
 Tears of Mary, The, 29. 
 
 Thief on the Cross, The, 112. 
 
 Told in the Market-place, 94. 
 
 To Jesus, 163. 
 
 To See the New Baby, 11. 
 
 To the Christ, 197. 
 
 Twain of Her, The, 74. 
 
 Via Crucis, 122. 
 
 Vigil of Joseph, The, 32. 
 
 Voice of Christmas, The, 172. 
 
 Was Subject Unto Them, 51. 
 When Christ Was Born, 8. 
 WTiite Comrade, The, 184. 
 White Comrade, The, 187. 
 Wilderness, The, 65. 
 Woman of Samaria, A, 86. 
 Wooden Christ, The, 183. 
 
 206 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 Garrison, Theodosia, 3, 26, 29> 
 
 117. 
 Gilder, Richard Watson, 63, 93, 
 
 139, 175. 
 
 Babcock, Edwina Stanton, 94. 
 
 Baird, George, M.P., 22, 153. 
 
 Barker, Elsa, 32, 192. 
 
 Bates, Carroll Lund, 96. 
 
 Bates, Katharine Lee, 15, 16, 40, Going, Charles Buxton, 121. 
 
 44, 63, 66, 78, 81, 99, 105, 173. Guild, Marian Pelton, 71. 
 Beall, Dorothy Landers, 70. 
 Binns, Henry Bryan, 163. 
 ]>,*ainerd, Mary Bowen, 76. 
 Ik-inch, Anna Hempstead, 88, Harding, Ruth Guthrie, 30. 
 
 Guiney, Louise Imogen, 7, 28. 
 Gunsaulus, Frank W., 79. 
 
 179. 
 Burr, Amelia Josephine, 31, 87, 
 
 159, 187, 195. 
 
 Burt, Maxwell Struthers, 122. 
 Burton, Richard, 80, 131, 181. 
 
 Carter, Elizabeth, 52. 
 Clark, Charles Badger, Jr., 181. 
 Cleghorn, Sarah N., 113, 174. 
 Coates, Florence Earle, 8, 25, 120, 
 
 190. 
 
 Crew, Helen Coale, 9. 
 Crow, Martha Foote, 183. 
 
 Daly, T. A., 178. 
 Dawson, W. J., 47, 85. 
 Day, Sarah J., 42, 51. 
 Duer, Douglas, 86. 
 
 Erskine, Barbara Peattie, 131. 
 
 Hazard, Caroline, 35, 36, 65, 69, 
 86, 98, 111, 129, 133. 
 
 Iris, Scharmel, 38, 139. 
 Jewett, Sophie, 13. 
 
 Kemp, Harry, 39, 48, 73, 172. 
 Kilmer, Joyce, 5, 75, 161. 
 
 Lanier, Sidney, 104. 
 Lee, Agnes, 37, 115. 
 Lee, Harry, 107, 197. 
 Le Gallienne, Richard, 203. 
 Lillie, Mai Elmendorf, 82. 
 
 Mclntyre, Robert, 49, 167. 
 Markham, Edwin, 127, 129, 134. 
 Masters, Edgar Lee, 143, 148. 
 Monroe, Harriet, 112. 
 Moody, William Vaughn, 99, 199. 
 
 Finley, John, 132. 
 Frank, Florence Kiper, 162, 183. Nicholson, Meredith, 110. 
 
 207 
 
Pangborn, Georgia Wood, 198. 
 Peabody, Josephine Preston, 83. 
 Pettus, Martha Elvira, 105. 
 Pound, Ezra, 140. 
 Proctor, Edna Dean, 40. 
 
 Reese, Lizette Woodworth, 10, 
 
 111. 
 
 Rice, Cale Young, 45, 118. 
 Robinson, Edwin Arlington, 109. 
 
 Sandburg, Carl, 41. 
 Sangster, Margaret E., 68, 193. 
 Schauffler, Robert Haven, 184. 
 Scollard, Clinton, 4, 43, 53, 64, 
 156, 169. 
 
 Smith, May Riley, 17. 
 Stott, Roscoe Oilman, 12. 
 
 Tabb, J. B., 132, 197. 
 Teasdale, Sara, 55, 56. 
 Thomas, Edith M., 11, 24. 
 
 Van Dyke, Henry, 35, 36, 77. 
 
 Walsh, Thomas, 21. 
 
 Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 
 
 74. 
 
 Wattles, Willard, 102, 191. 
 Wheelock, John Hall, 116. 
 Widdemer, Margaret, 19, 66, 189. 
 Woodberry, George Edward, 108. 
 
 THE END 
 
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