Christ’s blessèd cross with arms outspread, as if to mutely plead
For mercy for the sinner, from tender hearts love’s meed;
Of mightiest love the symbol true, the link ’twixt heaven and earth,
The sign by which earth’s frailest one is cleansed for heavenly birth.
In vain! No craving hand can touch that sacred symbol now,
Its holy vision bring no rest to world-tossed, aching brow;
The modern Cæsar has no need to mark where martyrs fell:
“Unto Cæsar what is Cæsar’s”—that word they kept too well.
And murmuring monks but echo, their chaplets telling o’er,
The words these stones repeated in the Roman days of yore;