Classic Poem

Could you have welcomed me
In flat-roofed Bethany,
Or climbed the way to death
Out of gray Nazareth,
Or later stood beside
Me when my body died,
Watching in a tomb
The spiritual bloom
When souls come back to see
Their own Gethsemane
With wounded hands and side
That will not be denied,—
Would you have risen then
Witnessing to men
That I had died in vain
Who now have come again?

Still with eager face
You track my deathless grace,
Yet with what little faith
Thinking I died in death,
As if so old a book
Could tell you how I look
Even when I bend
Like an accustomed friend
Bearing on my lips
Love's mute apocalypse,—
Two thousand years ago,
And still you do not know!