Classic Poem

And has it come to this? How strange it seems
That after all the shouting so it ends.
A skull-strewn hill, the great sky overhead,
All round about the throngs of little men,
And over there Jerusalem — Jerusalem —
Set like a queen upon a burnished throne,
With one white jewel in her perfumed breast,
The Temple, where men's prayers go up to God
Even now as on the Hill of Death I wait
To stretch my weary arms upon their cross.

(One moment now to take my leave of life?
I thank thee, comrade, for thy gentleness.
The Roman soldiers have been kind to-day,
Their eyes are milder than their wont to be;
And as I stumbled up the rocky path
I felt one lift me as I fell to earth.
His hand was warm and lingered over mine
An instant as he raised me, — was it thou?
I knew it from the gruffness of thy voice:
Man's love for man is something, after all.)

" To take my leave of life. " Dimly I see
The hill-side black with peoples, hear a sound,
Hoarse as the cry of breakers in a storm
When winds are angry with the fisher-craft,
Thunder upon me. Can they hate me so?

But now they fade from vision, and I seem
To ride once more along the palm-strewn street
Where little children press to touch my knee
And men and women arch my way with song,
Strong men with muscled bodies warm with life,
And women tender-eyed and rich in love;
That was my day of triumph, life and love.

And now I leave them, all the golden days
Of hands that touch and eyes that answer mine,
The quiet evenings, and the hush of dawn,
The fields that faint with lilies, street and hedge,
Grim Galilean caverns, and the water cress
Fringing the hill-stream, dusty winding roads,
The waving wheat-fields, and the arbor shade,
Thrill of warm bodies sleeping by my side,
And arms of comrades thrown across my breast
In the dim mornings when the dew is chill
And the first sparrow twitters to his mate
Beneath the vineyard trellis where they nest.

(John, my beloved, thou at least art true,
More than a brother, even though we part;
Stand thou before me, when they raise me up,
And I shall dream that thy dear head still lies
Upon my bosom, and forget the pain.)

Strange that I fear no evil, now that Death
Draws nigh to fold me in his long embrace,
But rather do I feel a wondrous calm
As if the cooling sheets already wrapped
In all the perfumed languor of the grave
This fevered body, — fold me surely, Death.

I would not come again though life be sweet
And fragrant with the lure of Sharon's rose.
'Tis something to have left upon their stems
Some buds unopened, to have lived one life
Rich with the unperfected beauty of great love,
And passed yet potent to what after comes,
Leaving still undeciphered half the truth,
Till on Golgotha's of their homely tasks,
Beset with trivial thorns from day to day,
And sneered by scoffers or unnoticed quite,
Men learn to shoulder bravely each his load
And come to know, as I do, what is love.

(Yes, I am ready. Nay, I know, my friend,
Thou must obey when Pilate gives command;
God's will be done: for thou hast wife and child,
And men just live for others, — as I die.)