"It seems but yesterday he played among
The shavings strewn on Joseph's work-shop floor.
The sunlight of the morning slanted through
The window—'t was in springtime—and across
The bench where Joseph sat, and then it lay
In golden glory on the boy's bright hair
And on the shavings that were golden too.
I saw him through the open door. I thought,
'My little king has found his golden crown.'
But unto Joseph I said nought at all.
"But now, ah me! he won no woman's love,
Nor loved one either as most men call love,
And so he had no child and he is gone
And I am left without him and alone."
So by her son's pale broken body mourned
The mother, dreaming on departed days.
And as with one who looks into the west,
Watching the embers of the outburned day
Crumble and cool and slowly droop and fade,
And will not take the darkling eastward path
Where lies his way until the last faint glow
Has left the sky and the early stars shine forth,
So did her dream cling to the ruined past
And all the joy they had in Nazareth
Before the years of doubt and trouble came.
Then, while loud laughter sounded up the hill
Where yet that ribald crew sang o'er the wine,
She bowed her head above her cradling arms
And softly sang, as to herself, the songs
Of Israel that once had served her well
To soothe the wakeful child.
But Magdalen
Arose upon her feet and tossed her cloak
Back from the midnight of her wind-blown hair
And lifted up her eyes into the dark
As though, beyond this circle of all our woe,
To read a hidden meaning in the stars.
"Aye, it is dark," she said. "The night comes on.
He was the sunshine of our little day.
The clouds unsettled softly and we saw
Ladders of glory climbing into light
Unspeakable, with dazzling interchange
Of Majesties and Powers. But suddenly
The tides of darkness whelm us round again
And this drear dwindled earth becomes once more
What it has ever been—a core of shade
And steaming vapor spinning in the dark,
A deeper clot of blackness in the void!
"The night comes on. 'T is hard to pierce the dark.
And if to me who loved him, whom he loved—
Though well thou sayest, 'Not as most men call love'—
Far harder will it be for those who hold
In memory no gesture of his hand,
No haunting echo of his patient voice,
Nor that dear trick of smiling with his eyes.
"O ceaseless tramp of armies down the years!
O maddened cries of 'Christ' and 'Son of Mary!'
While o'er the crying screams the hurtling death....
Thou gentle shepherd of the quiet fold,
Mild man of sorrows, hast thou done this thing,
Who camest not to bring peace but a sword?
Ah no, not thou, but only our childishness,
The pitifully childish heart of man
That cannot learn and know beyond a little.
"The priests and captains and the little kings
Will tear each other at the throat and cry:
'Thus said he, lived he; swear it or thou diest!'
But these shall pass and perish in the dark
While the lorn strays and outcasts of the world,
The souls whose pain has seared their pride to dust
And burned a way for love to enter in—
These only know his meaning and shall live.
"So is it as with one whose feet have trod
The valley of the shadow, who has seen
His dearest lowered into endless night.
All music holds for him a deeper strain
Of nobler meaning, and the flush of dawn,
High wind at noonday, crumbling sunset gold,
And the dear pathetic look of children's eyes—
All beauty pierces closer to his heart.
"Yea, thou thyself, pale youth upon the cross—
The godlike strength of thee was rooted deep
In human weakness. Even she who bore thee,
Seeing the man too nearly, missed the God,
Erring as fits the mother. Some will say
In coming years, I feel it in my heart,
That thou didst face thy death a conscious God,
Knowing almighty hands were stretched to snatch
And lift thee from the greedy clutching grave.
Falsely! Forgetting dark Gethsemane,—
Not knowing, as I know, what doubt assailed
Thy human heart until the latest breath.
Ah, what a trumpery death, what mockery
And mere theatric mimicry of pain,
If thou didst surely know thou couldst not die!
Thou didst not know. And whether even now
Thy straying ghost, like some great moth of night
Blown seaward through the shadow, flies and drifts
Along dim coasts and headlands of the dark,
A homeless wanderer up and down the void,
Or whether indeed thou art enthroned above
In light and life, I know not. This I know—
That in the moment of sheer certainty
My soul will die.