Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

His face is flushed with Boyhood's glow,
His earnest eyes are raised to heaven;
No thorn has scarred that bloodless brow,
Nor hands nor feet by nails are riven.

They have not bared His limbs in scorn,
Nor robbed Him of His seamless vest;
No scourge His virgin flesh has torn,
No soldier's spear has gashed His breast.

No crowds press round with ribald cry
To mock the helpless Saviour's woes;—
Why bides He there so patiently?
Why hangs the Child-Christ on the Cross?

109

Not yet are poured those bitter tears,
The Blood to save a world undone;
And of those three and thirty years
Scarce the first twelve their course have run.

O why that self-made Cross embrace?
Why antedate the coming strife?
Why blend with Boyhood's dawning grace
Dread shadows of a tortured life?

The chalice steeped in this world's sin,
The sweat of dark Gethsemane,
The burning thirst our souls to win,
The baptism of the bleeding Tree,

The traitor in the midnight gloom,
The guilty Herod's murderous fears,
The shout that hails the unrighteous doom—
Creep onward with the creeping years.

They come, they come, my Saviour Lord,
The snares around Thy path are set,
The foeman's darts against Thee stored—
They come, but oh, they come not yet.

110

Not yet in pride, or hate, or scorn,
A tyrant world hath risen to slay;
Oh wherefore dim life's early morn
With storms that wrap the closing day?

Victim of love, in manhood's prime
Thou wilt ascend the Cross to die;
Why hangs the Child before His time
Stretched on that bed of agony?

“No thorn-wreath crowns My boyish brow,
No scourge has dealt its cruel smart,
In hands and feet no nail-prints show,
No spear is planted in My heart.

“They have not set Me for a sign,
Hung bare beneath the sunless sky;
Nor mixed the draught of gall and wine
To mock My dying agony.

“The livelong night, the livelong day,
My child, I travail for thy good,
And for thy sake I hang alway
Self-crucified upon the Rood.

111

“To witness to the living Truth,
To keep thee pure from sin's alloy,
I cloud the sunshine of My youth;
The Man must suffer in the Boy.

“Visions of unrepented sin,
The forfeit crown, the eternal loss,
Lie deep my sorrowing soul within,
And nail My Body to the Cross.

“The livelong night, the livelong day,
A Child upon that Cross I rest;
All night I for My children pray,
All day I woo them to My breast.

“Long years of toil and pain are Mine,
Ere I be lifted up to die,
Where cold the Paschal moonbeams shine
At noon on darkened Calvary.

“Then will the thorn-wreath pierce My brow
The nails will fix Me to the tree;
But I shall hang as I do now,
Self-crucified for love of thee!”