Classic Poem

Judas . C ALAPHAS .

Y OU who preserve your pure integrity,
O you whose crimes transcend not credit, fly
Far from my presence; whose envenom'd sight
Pollutes the guilty! Thou, who wrong and right
Distinctly canst discern; whose gentle breast
All faith hath not abandon'd, but art blest
With children, brothers, friends; nor hast declin'd
The sweet affections of a pious mind;
Shut up the winding entry of thine ear,
Nor let the world of such a bargain hear.
A sin so horrible should be to none
Besides the desperate contractors known.
Where's now that mitred chief? where that dire train
Of sacrificers, worthy to be slain
On their own altars? I have found my curse:
The sun, except myself, sees nothing worse.
Hear, without hire; O hear the too well-known:
If you seek for a witness, I am one
That can the truth reveal: or would you find
A villain? Here's a self-accusing mind.
That Sacred Life, O most immaculate!
More than my masters! to your deadly hate
Have I betray'd: discharge my hands I may,
Although not of the guilt, yet of the prey.
Receive the gift you gave: a treachery
Second to mine, you may of others buy.

C AIAPHAS .

If thou accuse thyself of such a sin
Deservedly, thou hast a court within
That will condemn thee. Thy offences be
No crimes of ours: our consciences are free.
Nor shall the sacred treasury receive
The price of blood. Thee to thy fate we leave.

Judas .

Is this the doctrine of your piety,
To approve the crime, yet hate the hire? O fly,
Fly, wretch, unto the altar, and pollute
The temple with thy sin's accursed fruit.
Nor will I for myself with hopeless pray'r
Solicit heav'n, lost in my own despair;
But God's stern justice urge, that we, who were
Join'd in the guilt, may equal vengeance bear.
Nor shall I in my punishment prove slow:
Behold, your leader will before you go;
'Tis fit you follow; to those silent deeps,
Those horrid shades, where sorrow never sleeps.
Thou great Director of the rolling stars,
Unless Thou idly lookst on men's affairs,
And vainly we Thy brutish thunder fear,
Why should Thy land so dire a monster bear?
Or the sun not retire, and yet behold?
If those Thy fearful punishments of old
Require belief, in one unite them all:
Let seas in cataracts from meteors fall,
Afford no shore, but swallow in their brine;
That so the world's first ruin may prove mine.
Let melting stars their sulph'rous surfeit shed,
And all the heav'nly fires fall on my head.
And thou, O injur'd earth, thy jaws extend,
That I may to th' infernal shades descend:
Less cause had Thy revenge, when she the five
Enrag'd conspirators devour'd alive.
Those evils which amaz'd the former times,
Thy fury hath consum'd on smaller crimes.
O slow Revenger of His injuries,
And He Thy Son! some fearful death devise,
Unknown and horrid: or shall I pursue
My own offence, and act what Thou shouldst do?
You legions of heav'n's exiles, you who take
Revenge on mortals for the crimes you make,
Why troop you thus about me? Or what need
These terrors? Is my punishment decreed
In hell already? Furies, now I come.
In your dark dungeons what more horrid Rome
Shall now devour me? Must I to that place,
Where the curs'd father of a wicked race
Your scourges feels? who, when the world was new,
And but possess'd by four, his brother slew.
Or where that faithless prince blasphemes, than all
His host more eminent; who, lest his fall
Should honour to his enemies afford,
Made way for hated life with his own sword?
He most affects me who his father's chair
Usurp'd; when caught by his revenging hair,
He lost the earth and life: the way he led
T' avoided death, my willing feet shall tread.
Master, I fly to anticipate the event
Of my foul crime with equal punishment.

P ONTIUS P ILATE T HE J EWS .

H ORROR distracts my sense: irresolute
Whether I should break silence, or sit mute.
Envy th' Accus'd condemns, Whom justice clears.
I must confess, persuaded by my fears,
Lest I this state and people should incense,
I wish'd they could have prov'd that great offence.
Yet whatsoever they enforc'd of late,
No fault of His reveal'd, but their own hate.
His silence was a vanquishing reply.
Who for detecting their false piety
(Whose supercilious looks, with fasting pale,
Close avarice and proud ambition veil)
Is by their arts made guilty: One that slights
The God they adore, and violates His rites.
From hence those many-nam'd offences spring,
And His aspiring to become their King.
Can those poor fishers of that inland sea,
And women, following Him from Galilee,
So great a spirit in their Leader raise,
That Rome should fear, whom all the world obeys?
Yet He avers His Kingdom is unknown,
Nor of this world; and bows to Caesar's throne.
Prov'd by th' event: for when the vulgar bound
His yielding Hands, they no resistance found.
But His endowments, zealous in defence
Of clouded truth, their mortal hate incense.
Follow'd by few, who like affections bear,
And with belief their Master's doctrine hear.
If true. He may speak freely; nor must die
For ostentation, though He broach a lie.
But if distracted, that's a punishment
Ev'n to itself, and justice doth prevent.
He whom this annual solemnity
Hath now invited to the temple by
His father built, whose kingdom borders on
The land ennobled by Agenor's throne,
Of these stupendous acts by rumour spread
Could fix no faith, though in his city bred.
To laughter doom'd, his rival Herod scorn'd,
And sent Him back in purple robes adorn'd.
Th' implacable now far more fiercely bent
To prosecute the twice-found Innocent:
Perhaps afraid lest they their own should lose,
Unless they Him of forged guilt accuse.
But when revenge doth once the mind engage,
O how it raves, lost to all sense but rage!
No lioness, late of her whelps bereft,
With wilder fury prosecutes the theft.
O shame! through fear I sought to shield the right
With honest fraud, and justice steal by sleight:
As when the labouring bark, too weak to stem
The boist'rous tide, obliquely cuts the stream.
They have an ancient custom, if we may
Believe the Jews, derived from that day
When the deliver'd sons of Israel
Fled from those banks whose floods in summer swell —
That ever when the vernal moon shall join
Her silver orb, and in full lustre shine,
They should some one release, to gratify
The people, by their law condemn'd to die.
Now, hoping to have freed the Innocent,
The violent priests my clemency prevent:
Who urge the heady vulgar to demand
One Barabbas; a thief, who had a hand
In ev'ry murder, hot with human blood.
How little it avails us to be good!
Preposterous favour! through the hate they bear
His guiltless soul, their votes the guilty clear.
And now my wife's not idle dreams perplex
My struggling thoughts, which all this night did vex
Her troubled slumbers; who conjures me by
All that is holy, all the gods, that I
Should not the laws of justice violate
To gratify so undeserv'd a hate.
For this shall I the Hebrew fathers slight,
Th' endeavours of a nation so unite,
Committed to my charge? Shall I, for One
Poor abject, forfeit all the good I have done?
These pester'd walls all Jewry now enfold;
The houses hardly can their strangers hold,
Sent from all parts to this Great Festival:
What if the vulgar to their weapons fall?
Who knows the end, if once the storm begin?
Sure I, their judge, egregious praise should win
By troubling of the public peace. Shall I
Then render Him to death? Impiety!
For what offence? Is his offence not great,
Whose innovation may a war beget?
Lest empire suffer, they who sceptres bear
Oft make a crime, and punish what they fear.
One hope remains: our soldiers the Free-born,
And yet by our command, with whips have torn.
A sight so full of pity may assuage
The swiftly-spreading fire of popular rage.
Look on this spectacle! His arms all o'er
With lashes gall'd, deep dy'd in their own gore!
His sides exhausted! all the rest appears
Like that fictitious scarlet which He wears!
And for a crown, the wreathed thorns enfold
His bleeding brows! With grief His grief behold!

J EWS .

Away with Him: from this contagion free
Th' infected earth, and nail Him on a tree.

P ILATE .

What, crucify your King?

J EWS .

Dominion can
No rival brook. His rule, a law to man,
Whom Rome adores we readily obey,
And will admit of none but Caesar's sway.
He Caesar's right usurps who hopes to ascend
The Hebrew throne. Thy own affairs intend.
Dost thou discharge thy master's trust, if in
Thy government a precedent begin
So full of danger, tending to the rape
Of majesty? Shall treason thus escape?

P ILATE .

The tumult swells: the vulgar and the great
Join in their votes with contributed heat.
Whose whisp'rings such a change of murmur raise
As when the rising wind's first fury strays
'Mong wave-beat rocks, when gath'ring clouds deform
The face of heav'n, whose wrath begets a storm:
The fearful pilot then distrusts the skies,
And to the nearest port for refuge flies.
To these rude clamours they mine ears inure:
Such sharp diseases crave a sudden cure.
You my attendants, hither quickly bring
Spot-purging water from the living spring.
Thou liquid crystal, from pollution clear,
And you, my innocent hands, like record bear,
On whom these cleansing streams so purely run,
I voluntarily have nothing done.
Nor am I guilty, though He guiltless die:
Yours is the crime; His blood upon you lie.

J EWS .

Rest thou secure. If His destruction shall
Draw down celestial vengeance, let it fall
Thick on our heads, in punishment renew,
And ever our dispersed race pursue.

P ILATE .

Then I, from this tribunal, mounted on
Embellish'd marble, judgment's awful throne,
Thus censure: Lead Him to the cross, and by
A servile death let Judah's King there die.

C HORUS OF J EWISH W OMEN . J ESUS .

W E all deplore Thy miseries;
For Thee we beat our breasts; our eyes
In bitter tears their moisture shed.
If Thou be he by ravens fed,
Aloft on flaming chariot borne,
Yet wouldst to cruel lords return:
Or that sad bard, believ'd too late,
Who sung his country's servile fate.
Now come to sigh her destiny,
Alike unhappy, twice to die:
Or he, long nourish'd in the wood,
Who late in Jordan's cleansing flood
So many wash'd; that durst reprove
A king for his incestuous love;
Slain for a dancer. If the same,
Or other of an elder fame,
Sent back to earth, in vices drown'd,
To raise it from that dark profound;
'Tis sure Thy sanctity exceeds,
Blaz'd by Thy virtue and Thy deeds.
O never more, ring'd with a throng
Of followers, shall Thy sacred tongue
Inform our actions, nor the way
To heav'n, and heav'nly joys, display!
The blind, who now the unknown light
Beholds, scarce trusting his own sight,
Thy gift, shall not the Giver see.
Those maladies, subdu'd by Thee,
Which pow'rful art and herbs defy,
No more Thy sov'reign touch shall fly.
Nor loaves, so tacitly increas'd,
Again so many thousands feast.
Thou rule of life's perfection,
By practice as by precept shown,
Late hemm'd with auditors, whose store
Encumber'd the too-narrow shore,
The mountains cover'd with their press,
The mountains than their people less;
For Whom our youths their garments strew,
Victorious boughs before Thee threw,
While Thou in triumph rid'st along,
Saluted with a joyful song:
Now see what change from fortune springs!
O dire vicissitude of things!
Betray'd, abandon'd by Thy own,
Dragg'd by Thy foes, oppos'd by none.
Thou hope of our afflicted state,
Thou Balm of Life, and Lord of Fate,
Not erst to such unworthy bands
Didst Thou submit Thy pow'rful Hands.
Lo, He who gave the dumb a tongue,
With patient silence bears His wrong!
The soldier, ah! renews his blows;
The whip new-open'd furrows shows,
Which now in angry tumours swell:
To us their wrath the Romans sell.
Lo, how His members flow! the smart
Confin'd to no particular part:
His stripes, which make all but one sore,
Run in confused streams of gore.
Art Thou the slave of Thy own fate,
To bear Thy torments' cursed weight?
What Arab, though he wildly stray
In wand'ring tents, and live by prey,
Or Cyclop, who no pity knows,
Would such a cruel task impose?
O that the fatal pressure might
Sink Thee to earth, nor weigh more light
Than death upon Thee; that Thy weak
Untwisted thread of life might break!
It were a blessing so to die:
But O for how great cruelty
Art Thou reserv'd! the Cross Thou now
Support'st must with Thy burden bow.

J ESUS .

Daughters of Solyma, no more
My wrongs thus passionately deplore.
These tears for future sorrows keep:
Wives, for yourselves and children weep.
That horrid day will shortly come,
When you shall bless the barren womb,
And breast that never infant fed:
Then shall you wish the mountain's head
Would from his trembling basis slide,
And all in tombs of ruins hide.

C HORUS .

Alas! Thou spotless Sacrifice
To greedy death! no more our eyes
Shall see Thy Face! ah, never more
Shalt Thou return from death's dark shore.
Though Lazarus late at Thy call
Brake through the bars of funeral;
Rais'd from that prison to review
The world which then he hardly knew;
Who forthwith former sense regains;
The blood sprung in his heated veins;
His sinews supple grew, yet were
Again almost congeal'd with fear.
Thy followers, Sadoc, now may know
Their error from the shades below.
A few, belov'd by the Most High.
Through virtue of the Deity,
To others rarely render'd breath:
None ever rais'd himself from death.