“Tears washed the trouble from her face;
She changed into a child;
’Mid weeds and wrecks she stood,—a place
Of ruin,—but she smiled!
“Oh, had I lived in that great day,
How had its glory new
Filled earth and heaven, and caught away
My ravished spirit too!
“No thoughts that to the world belong
Had stood against the wave
Of love which set so deep and strong
From Christ’s then open grave.
“No cloister-floor of humid stone
Had been too cold for me;
For me no Eastern desert lone
Had been too far to flee.
“No lonely life had passed too slow,
When I could hourly scan
Upon his cross, with head sunk low,
That nailed, thorn-crownèd Man;
“Could see the Mother with the Child
Whose tender winning arts
Have to his little arms beguiled
So many wounded hearts!
“And centuries came, and ran their course;
And, unspent all that time,
Still, still went forth that Child’s dear force,
And still was at its prime.
“Ay, ages long endured his span
Of life,—’tis true received,—
That gracious Child, that thorn-crowned Man!
—He lived while we believed.
“While we believed, on earth he went,
And open stood his grave;
Men called from chamber, church, and tent,
And Christ was by to save.
“Now he is dead! Far hence he lies
In the lorn Syrian town;
And on his grave, with shining eyes,
The Syrian stars look down.
“In vain men still, with hoping new,
Regard his death-place dumb,
And say the stone is not yet to,
And wait for words to come.