 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
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,
179
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 | |