"There were chance passers-by that railed on Him,
Not knowing, those too, what they did! They scoffed,
Wagging their heads: 'Ha! Thou that couldst destroy
The temple and rebuild it in three days,
Save thyself now, and from the cross come down.'
After the same sort the chief priests and scribes,
Mocking among themselves, made mirth and said:
'Others he saved, let him now save himself!
The Christ of God, the King of Israel,
Let him come down now from the cross, and we,
We, will believe on him.' Two robbers even
Crucified with him joined the ribaldry,
Tauntingly saying, 'Save thyself and us!'
But one of them relented, touched with grace.
He praying said, 'Jesus, remember me
When Thou art come into Thy kingdom!' Faith
Like that, to see and to believe—despite
The shame and seeming helplessness—the king
In Jesus of a world beyond the world,
Won on the Lord; and He—He too with faith,
Sheer faith, faith far more wonderful in Him—
Gave answer calmly as became the king,
'This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.'
"It grew now to be near the point of noon,
And there fell midnight darkness on the land
Gross for three hours; it was as if the sun
In heaven would not behold that wickedness.
Then the Lord Jesus uttered a loud cry,
The saddest that on earth was ever heard;
'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,'
He said. Those are the first words of a psalm
Prophetic of a suffering Savior Christ;
They mean, 'My God, my God, wherefore hast thou
Forsaken me?' That was the bitterness,
That must, I think, have been the bitterness,
Which most He dreaded in Gethsemane."
Mary looked up toward Paul with eyes that asked
Whether she well divined that this was so.
Paul swerved a little from the point, but said:
"The mystery of redemption! A great deep
It is, to us unfathomable quite—
Soundless as is the mystery of sin.
But alienation and exile from God,
Distance, and darkness, and abandonment,
This, sin works of its own necessity;
And this helps make the sinner's punishment.
Therefore to feel a frightful sense of this
Perhaps was needful to atone for sin."
Paul so far only, and then Mary said:
"The Savior's sense of that abandonment
Must have been short, I think, as short as sharp.
For following close upon that lonely cry,
There came this word, 'I thirst.' It was as though—
The imperious overmastering agony
Of spirit past—the flesh, silenced before,
Had leave to speak now witnessing its need.
Anguished the word was, but it seemed relief
To hear such sad acknowledgment succeed
The desolation of that other wail.
They brought a hyssop drenched in vinegar,
And on a reed lifted it to His lips.
That moisture loosed his tongue to speak once more,
The utter last time that he ever spake—
Until He used His resurrection voice.
The words were: 'It is finished! Father, I
Into Thy hands commend my spirit.' Loud
He spoke thus, and therewith His head declined,
Surrendering so His spirit up to God.
It did not seem like dying, as men die
Of sickness or of violence causing death.
I could not but bethink me how He said
Once, 'I lay down my life, no man from me
Taketh it, of myself I lay it down!"
So Mary, with a cadence in her voice
That meant an end of speaking for that time.