The Miracle Songs of Jesus

BY WILSON MACDONALD
Copyright 1921 By Wilson MacDonald Published November, 1921 All rights reserved
Mr. Wilson MacDonald is already well-known to students of Canadian verse through his volume The Song of the Prairie Land , published in 1918, and also through various poems which have appeared from time to time in magazines in Canada and abroad. The poem, The Miracle Songs of Jesus , hitherto unpublished, shows Mr. MacDonald's distinguished gift in a new form, and will be welcomed as an important contribution to religious verse.

Jesus, the poet of Galilee, Fashioned the light in His lyric hands, And held it up for all men to see: The Publican and the Pharisee, The merchant rich and the robber bands On the outcast fringe of Galilee. But all of the wise men sneered at Him; And the gay young fellows jeered at Him; And only a fisherman fool or two Looked up at the Light with its liquid hue And drank its beauty of red and blue.
Jesus, the poet of Galilee, Sang that the weary might be free; Sang of the lilies—how their glory Shamed the best at a king's command; Sang His truths in a lyric story Even the poor could understand. And the wise men heard and they tried to scan The rhymes of the poet Son-of-Man. But, every time that He sang, they found Some cherished rule of their pedant school Was killed in his poem's strange, new sound.
And Jesus, the poet, grew sick at heart And fled from the halls where learning kills; And took His verse from the fear of art To the bold delight of the rain-washed hills. And the songs He sang to the desert sea Were far too sweet for the ears of men; But the gray-white dunes of Galilee Have blown with a fairer flower since then.
A learned group of dons will gloat At a fool's last word in a high priest's throat. But the song of God in a Carpenter's saw Could never hold wise men in awe. And whenever Christ, the bard, would sing They lost His truth in a hammer's ring.
The wilderness called with her silent lure: O poet of thoughtless Nazareth Come out to me with your starry breath. And His white reed yearned for the moon-chilled sands Where the frayed flowers cure With their gypsy hands. But He turned His face From the silent place, With the comrade stars above, As we all have done, As we all have done From a maid we dare not love.