Classic Poem

I AM a Jew, amenable to your law
That here upon the Vatican I die
To make a Roman festival. 'Twere well
If ye should bind me firmly when ye bind,
Head down, arms and legs thrown wide. Drive deep —
Perhaps such searching nails may find the truth.

Ye need not shrink; no longer is my hand
Instant to anger; my sword has dulled its edge.
You will permit, my masters, out of grace,
A fisherman whose hands have mended nets
A little while to bring his fish to land,
Brown memories and little silvery thoughts:
I was not much for talking in those days.

Not much for talking, but I loved him deep;
Not even John, lad of the shining hair,
Dared leap to meet him walking by the sea,
Or knew that little trick of hand and arm
That tossed the shimmering beauty on the shore.
On me he said his secret house should stand,
The Church Invisible that holds men's hearts
Like nesting birds within the clefted rock.
Simon I was, but now I am the Rock.

Aye, even though I hear the drunken populace
Of an ensanguined Rome loll to applaud
Yon purple emperor whose most holy zeal
Is ridding his world of Christian infidels,
Through drooping vine leaves, insolent with song,
Pampered by slave-girls, this, this is not Rome!
There is another Citadel of God,
And it is builded on no shaken sands
But on immense and granite permanence.
Simon I was, I am, I am the Rock.

Out of much testing is the center proved,
The corn threshed in the ear, and quietly
Man grows to understanding like a child
Grateful at last for that swift chastening
Which healed him worthy of his Father's house;
For though he enter on belated feet
Creeping at midnight through the silent halls
To that one room prepared, the grace of God
Like to a mother waking, calls his name,
" I knew your footfall; welcome home, my son. "

O Grace of Christ, white nester of the heart,
And brooding Dove whose silence is its song,
Not flesh and bone have whispered of the truth
But faith alone reveals the living God.
But faith, what faith? Not only that which bows
In acquiescent silence at the shrine
Ablaze with constellations, but the wrestling soul
That meets each day its wan Gethsemane
And just wins through to anguish, brokenly.
He knows not peace who may not stride the storm.
And I who failed him, left him hedged with thorns,
Beaten and mocked and brave and shadow-eyed,
Him the dear lover, comrade, teacher, friend,
The man who burst the ancient dread of death
And by great loving beat the darkness down,
I who had heard three times the cock that crew
And knew he loved me not alone for this
Great, golden body and impetuous faith,
But loved me best when I denied him most
And called me to him with still patient eyes
Jesting at sorrow — I know, I know at last.

He is the Christ, I say not was but is ,
The quiet walker of the windy stars,
Familiar with his immortality
And unabashed by cocks that crow him nay,
Young as creation, ancient as the hills,
Walker of deserts, coucher with the slain,
Lips of the lover, mother's feeding breast,
Doubter and doubt, and everlasting aye,
The hound of heaven, wanderer of God.

For if a man have power to save his world
By loving much, how shall we think it strange
If he return to walk again with men
In every land, in every century?
This do I know, who have seen many lands,
That down the gray traditions of the years
Walks many a wanderer with a face like his,
And I have knowledge of the road he came.
The grace of God will walk his world again;
Men shall not lack the comfort of God's kiss.

" Remember this, " he spake and broke the Bread,
" Ye whom I loved that ye might know the way
To scatter friendship through the hearts of men:
Whene'er ye break the bread of comradeship
Whether in homes where children laugh and cling,
Or with the aged sitting with their dreams,
Or with the young, the strong who take the shade
Where the mown grass dries in the ruddy sun,
That I am Love, and ye shall find my face
Reflected in the eyes of those you love
And in great longing know that I am there.
I am the bread that fills you day and night,
I am the wine of perfect friendliness;
And whosoever shall remember this
Memorial of parting in a quiet room
Where twelve dear friends gave each the kiss of peace,
Shall hold his own Last Supper in my name.
As I have loved you, friends, feed thou my sheep. "

And yet not this could compass me with wings
Upon this hill where I shall meet my death
Head downward swooning on a bloody cross:
What should I fear who have beheld my God?
I am an old man, yet youth is in my heart
Who have discerned with younger eyes the truth.
There are strange things that falter at the sense
Of sight and hearing, things we cannot touch,
And scarcely even know, till in a flame
Sudden there bursts a sense within the sense
Of hearing, seeing, — and men name it death.
How shall one chart that chronicle of faith
Whose hands are touching parchment and pen alone?
A traveler sets out upon a distant road,
Finds an inn, pays his host, and sleeps,
And all night long the road runs by his door.

To-day Paul dies, wrapped in a sheet of flame
In this same festival of Lupercal;
His body will shed ash upon the wind.
Paul says that in the judgment of the dead
The dust shall quiver, bodies rise again
In old habitual flesh and blood and bone
Familiar ... I do not hold with Paul.
For in a life-time I have outgrown my shell
Over and over, cast aside the clay,
And am not now the same in any part;
If bodies rise, which body will return?

Nay, Paul is wrong; he never talked with Him
Who swore the soul may pass but never die,
Entering again such house as time shall raise
Fit for his dwelling, but never the old walls;
For when the beams decay, we build anew,
Remembering the old home and its graciousness
Of thronging threshold and of sheltering roof, —
Who would put new wine into musty jars
Except the fragrance of the musk be there?
Nay, Paul is wrong; he hath not seen his God
As I have seen Him walking in the dim
Young twilight near the open tomb. ...
Ashes to ashes, but spirit walks in flame.

There shall come men who will obscure the truth,
Saying the body, as Egyptians do,
Must be preserved against the day of doom,
Or the soul perish. ... The soul can never die.
For though the body molder stone by stone
And in three days dissolve to whence it came,
Insensate earth and groping root of tree,
The spirit walks with peace upon its lips,
Returning to those who, waiting in the flesh,
Have yet clear eyes to see beyond the grave,
And know no partings and no distances
But only that their love is deeper now,
More tender-true, more near, more intimate.

This is the victory of Christ in death
That many dreamed like Socrates the truth,
But only He first shook aside the tomb
With the glad triumph of a known return.
Take care ye know Him when he pass you by.

... And with this cast I draw my net to land.