Classic Poem

You think it strange that I, an aging man,
Here in this lonely village hew my beams
And set the flat-roofed houses straight and true,
Yet ever with a something in my face
That makes you love me, even though I'm old;
How should an old man teach a boy to love?

Aye, lad, we'll rest, and clear a little space
Here in the shavings underneath the tree —
How softly that green vine has faced the sun,
The clusters ripen, there's a sparrow's nest,
I think the lilies never were so fair.
The goats are driven through the narrow streets,
The weary oxen leave the threshing-floor,
And there's the new moon like a silver sail.

Oh, I have sailed upon a magic sea,
And heard the winds that blow from the new moon
Across the waters move with wondering —

Boy, you have served me; if you were my son
I do not think you could be tenderer.
And I have marked the question in your face
Many long days you never spoke at all
But set a stouter shoulder to the beam
Because I stumbled lifting it in place,
Feeling the old wound in my side afresh.
I was as strong within my father's house —
He was a carpenter — I had my trade of him.
Remembrance of him and of my mother's face
Crowds round my heart: to-night you shall be told.

There was a young man, such as you are now,
Filled with great wonder at the winds and hills,
Sturdy of back, laughing, and fleet of foot,
Yet hiding a great yearning in his heart
For the good touch of women and of friends.
Lettered he was only in humble ways,
Yet knew the ancient language of his race
And pored above the parchments lovingly
Upon the house-top near the twilight time,
Reading of Abram in the land of Ur,
Of Moses in the courts of Pharaoh,
Of Samuel and the voice that called
And how he late anointed Jesse's son,
Of how Saul loved the young lad in his heart,
And of the arrows shot by Jonathan.

One day into the village came a Greek,
Hungry and fleeing, whom the carpenter
Took to his house because he once had fled
Into another country years before;
And when the fugitive prepared to go
He took from his own breast a parchment roll
And gave it to the young lad of the home,
Saying, " My friend, I leave thee living bread
For those that hunger dumbly after Truth.
There was a good man whom they judged to death
Because men loved him for the word he spoke,
Saying he had no fear but to do wrong,
No aim in living but to speak true.
He drank the hemlock, but his words are here
Written in love by one who loved him much;
Behold, I plant truth like a mustard seed
Within thy heart, to cover all the earth.
Take it and use it as the word of God. "

So saying went the wanderer from the town,
But the young man remembered all he spoke,
And knew the parchment was from Sinai.

Then came upon him the awful immanence
Of understanding out of visionings,
And he was caught up in a fiery cloud
Of all the dead undying prophecies
That stirred the hearts of those whom men have slain
And after worshiped, knowing them from God.
And as he went about the village street
He saw new meanings in the children's play,
The shepherd's labors, and the house-wife's toil,
And love of men for those who yield them peace.
He laughed among them, wrestled ruddily
With his hale comrades, helped the vintner tread,
Rejoicing with his father in snug beams
And well hewn rafters; but his mother knew
Upon the Sabbath how he sought the hills
And made the barren slopes his synagogue.

Then was his vision shattered by a voice
That cried upon him in the wilderness,
Saying, " God's Kingdom is near at hand " ;
And he went out among the country folk
Speaking the truth of God's love unto man,
And how His Kingdom was within the heart,
And man should love his brother, knowing him
His kingly comrade and good comforter.

Then did the elders murmur at his speech,
Saying such words were highly dangerous,
And he should die — so he was judged to death.

But I have had a vision in my time
As here in this lone village I have bent
Through forty years, and now you at my side —
I think it set God's peace upon my face —
And this I tell you, now that night draws near,
And you shall be a witness of the dream.

I thought one hung upon a cross all day
Upon a hill and faced the blazing sun
And heard the thunder of the waves of hate,
Yet only saw his mother's stricken face,
Three mourning women, and one fearless friend.
Then all was darkness, and he cried aloud,
" My God, why hast thou left me, even Thou! "
Then came forgetfulness and gracious peace.

I thought in time the darkness lifted up
And pain came back into his battered hands
And a great fire burned deep within his side;
Then a low voice that whispered in a tomb:

" Father, my God, thou knowest of our love
And now I heard him in the utter dark
Calling me forth into the green of day.
Thou knowest all the splendor of that cry
That shattered to me through the walls of sleep
And dragged me upward even to his arms.
In our white town where my dear sisters sit
There is no comfort like they laid away,
And the faint myrrh is sweet about him still.

" Oh, God my Father, grant that my strong lips
Shall blossom on him red as our deep love,
My arms cleave to him and my heart awake
Remembrance of old stirrings of the blood,
My hands bring healing, and my feet yield life.
He is so strong, so young, so brave, so true,
He has within him all the goodly springs
Unsquandered and unwasted, deep and clear:
He cannot die because of one red day.
Even the Roman turned aside the blow,
Sparing the shining beauty of his limbs;
The spear has pierced him, but the tip was love.
He cannot die, he is not dead, not dead.

" See, I have come, my Father, past the guard,
I waited for the lightning and the storm,
The shuddering earth that shook aside the stone
And let me in to call upon his name.
And I have warmed him, lips and breast and all,
Given my youth and all the strength of love,
He cannot die, he is not dead, not dead. "

I thought there came a light within the dark,
A little radiance and a growing flame,
A flutter of the eyelid and a slow deep breath,
The dead lips stirred and met the lips that clung,
And life came back within the arms of God.
Then he that was sore wounded unto death
Knew his good friend and said, " I have but slept. "

With morning stooped a woman to the tomb
Where two men sat, and she became afraid
And ran to tell the others, weeping sore
That he was gone whom she had come to bathe.

I thought within a garden once she knelt
And tried to touch him whom great love had healed
But he cried out and gave her not her will,
Whereat his heart went dead for a great space
Because he loved her with exceeding love
And would have wed her for the love he bore.

I thought he showed himself among his friends
Within a room where one felt of his hands
And knelt before him, crying, " Thou art he " ;
Or on the shore he showed them where to cast
As in the days before the great red day,
And one upon the sand cried, " Thou art he. "

And then because he knew his work was done
On that high hill where he had hung till dark,
Proving that he was steadfast unto death,
Giving his life as witness to the truth
That men so loved that they could die for love
And set a witness on the hills of time;
Because it seemed that he had suffered much,
And he was young, and life held something still,
And God had tried and found him to be true;
Because he knew that he had done enough
And God was strong to finish what he left,
Leading men's hearts to that high sacrifice
As to an altar, — so he met his friends
And one day left them, passing from the hill
Where he had told them much of goodly cheer.
Then to a far country made his unknown way
And builded flat-roofed houses straight and true,
Yet never spoke of what he left behind.

For then it seemed he found another Truth
Beside the one he learned on the high hill,
That to build houses is a work of God,
To set them level, raise them square and strong,
Where children may find shelter, and love nest,
And women spin, and men smile in their sleep;
That Labor is a worship fair as Love,
And God is but a Master Artisan
Who builds a Temple in His Universe
Alike within men's hearts as in the sun.

So as his shavings scattered from his plane,
" They are my prayers, " he said half-smilingly;
And as he set a house-beam in its place,
" I am like God, " he said, " Who high in heaven
Hangs the great ridge-pole of the Milky Way " ;
And when there came a boy to learn his trade,
He loved him with exceedingly great love
Because he seemed unto him as a son;
And as he taught the lad to fashion straight,
" He is the priest who knows the false from true,
And he shall shape anew a living God
And never know the thing that he hath done. "

Behold, my lad, the evening star has come,
And these old wounds within my hands grow fresh —
I hurt them once when my great hammer swerved, —
I cannot talk the night away as once
When I was younger, yet these arms of mine
Have some good labor left within them still.

So now, good-night, I leave you to your dreams.
God keep you, boy; to-morrow brings us work,
And work is blessing and a house of peace.