Between two common days this day was hung
When Love went to the ending that was his;
His seamless robe was rent, his brow was wrung,
He took at last the sponge's bitter kiss.
A simple day the dawn had watched unfold
Before the night had borne the death of love;
You took the bread I blessed, and love was sold
Upon your lips, and paid the price thereof.
I changed then, as when soul from body slips,
And casts its passion and its pain aside;
I pledged you with most spiritual lips,
And gave you hands that you had crucified.
You who betrayed, kissed, crucified, forgot,
You walked with Christ, poor fool, and knew it not!
FOR FASTING DAYS.
Are you my songs, importunate of praise?
Be still, remember for your comforting
That sweeter birds have had less leave to sing
Before men piped them from their lonely ways.
Greener leaves than yours are lost in every spring
Rubies far redder thrust their eager rays
Into the blindfold dark for many days
Before men chose them for a finger-ring.
Sing as you dare, not as men choose, receive not
The passing fashion's prize, for dole or due—
Men's summer-sweet unrecognition—grieve not:
Oh, stoop not to them! Better far that you
Should go unsung than sing as you believe not,
Should go uncrowned than to yourselves untrue.