THE CRUCIFIXION
"A Paltry Sacrifice."—PREFACE TO A PLAY
Oh, man's capacity
For spiritual sorrow, corporal pain!
Who has explored the deepmost of that sea,
With heavy links of a far-fathoming chain?
That melancholy lead,
Let down in guilty and in innocent hold,
Yea into childish hands delivered,
Leaves the sequestered floor unreached, untold.
One only has explored
The deepmost; but He did not die of it.
Not yet, not yet He died. Man's human Lord
Touched the extreme; it is not infinite.
But over the abyss
Of God's capacity for woe He stayed
One hesitating hour; what gulf was this?
Forsaken He went down, and was afraid.
THE NEWER VAINGLORY
Two men went up to pray; and one gave thanks,
Not with himself—aloud,
With proclamation, calling on the ranks
Of an attentive crowd.
"Thank God, I clap not my own humble breast,
But other ruffians' backs,
Imputing crime—such is my tolerant haste—
To any man that lacks.
"For I am tolerant, generous, keep no rules,
And the age honours me.
Thank God, I am not as these rigid fools,
Even as this Pharisee."