 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
THE PASSING OF CHRIST
I
O Man of light and lore!Do you mean that in our day
The Christ hath past away;
That nothing now is divine
In the fierce rays that shine
Through every cranny and thought;
That Christ as he once was taught
Shall be the Christ no more?
That the Hope and Savior of men
Shall be seen no more again;
That, miracles being done,
Gone is the Holy One?
And thus, you hold, this Christ
For the past alone sufficed;
From the throne of the hearts of the world
The Son of God shall be hurled,
And henceforth must be sought
New prophets and kings of thought;
That the tenderest, truest word
The heart of sorrow hath heard
Shall sound no more upon earth;
That he who hath made of birth
A dread and sacred rite;
Who hath brought to the eyes of death
A vision of heavenly light,
Shall fade with our failing faith;—
178
Eternal paradise;
Who made the poor man's lowly
Labor a service holy,
And sweat of work more sweet
Than incense at God's feet;
Who turned the God of Fear
To a father, bending near;
Who looked through shame and sin
At the sanctify within;
Whose memory, since he died,
The earth hath sanctified—
Hath been the stay and the hold
Of millions of lives untold,
And the world on its upward path
Hath led from crime and wrath;—
You say that this Christ hath past
And we cannot hold him fast?
II
Ah, no! If the Christ you mean
Shall pass from this time, this scene,
These hearts, these lives of ours,
'T is but as the summer flowers
Pass, but return again,
To gladden a world of men.
For he,—the only, the true,—
In each age, in each waiting heart,
Leaps into life anew;
Tho' he pass, he shall not depart.
Shall pass from this time, this scene,
These hearts, these lives of ours,
'T is but as the summer flowers
Pass, but return again,
To gladden a world of men.
For he,—the only, the true,—
In each age, in each waiting heart,
Leaps into life anew;
Tho' he pass, he shall not depart.
Behold him now where he comes!
Not the Christ of our subtile creeds,
But the lord of our hearts, of our homes,
Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs;
The brother of want and blame,
The lover of women and men,
With a love that puts to shame
All passions of mortal ken;—
Yet of all of woman born
His is the scorn of scorn;
Before whose face do fly
Lies, and the love of a lie;
Who from the temple of God
And the sacred place of laws
Drives forth, with smiting rod,
The herds of ravening maws.
Not the Christ of our subtile creeds,
But the lord of our hearts, of our homes,
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The brother of want and blame,
The lover of women and men,
With a love that puts to shame
All passions of mortal ken;—
Yet of all of woman born
His is the scorn of scorn;
Before whose face do fly
Lies, and the love of a lie;
Who from the temple of God
And the sacred place of laws
Drives forth, with smiting rod,
The herds of ravening maws.
'T is he, as none other can,
Makes free the spirit of man,
And speaks, in darkest night,
One word of awful light
That strikes through the dreadful pain
Of life, a reason sane—
That word divine which brought
The universe from naught.
Makes free the spirit of man,
And speaks, in darkest night,
One word of awful light
That strikes through the dreadful pain
Of life, a reason sane—
That word divine which brought
The universe from naught.
Ah, no, thou life of the heart,
Never shalt thou depart!
Not till the leaven of God
Shall lighten each human clod;
Not till the world shall climb
To thy hight serene, sublime,
Shall the Christ who enters our door
Pass to return no more.
Never shalt thou depart!
Not till the leaven of God
Shall lighten each human clod;
Not till the world shall climb
To thy hight serene, sublime,
Shall the Christ who enters our door
Pass to return no more.
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder | |