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150
THE DEAD CHRIST.
Take the dead Christ to my chamber,
The Christ I brought from Rome;
Over all the tossing ocean,
He has reached his Western home:
Bear him as in procession,
And lay him solemnly
Where, through weary night and morning,
He shall bear me company.
The Christ I brought from Rome;
Over all the tossing ocean,
He has reached his Western home:
Bear him as in procession,
And lay him solemnly
Where, through weary night and morning,
He shall bear me company.
The name I bear is other
Than that I bore by birth;
And I've given life to children
Who'll grow and dwell on earth;
But the time comes swiftly towards me,
(Nor do I bid it stay,)
When the dead Christ will be more to me
Than all I hold to-day.
Than that I bore by birth;
And I've given life to children
Who'll grow and dwell on earth;
But the time comes swiftly towards me,
(Nor do I bid it stay,)
When the dead Christ will be more to me
Than all I hold to-day.
151
Lay the dead Christ beside me;
Oh, press him on my heart;
I would hold him long and painfully,
Till the weary tears should start;
Till the divine contagion
Heal me of self and sin,
And the cold weight press wholly down
The pulse that chokes within.
Oh, press him on my heart;
I would hold him long and painfully,
Till the weary tears should start;
Till the divine contagion
Heal me of self and sin,
And the cold weight press wholly down
The pulse that chokes within.
Reproof and frost, they fret me;
Towards the free, the sunny lands,
From the chaos of existence
I stretch these feeble hands;
And, penitential, kneeling,
Pray God would not be wroth,
Who gave not the strength of feeling
And strength of labor both.
Towards the free, the sunny lands,
From the chaos of existence
I stretch these feeble hands;
And, penitential, kneeling,
Pray God would not be wroth,
Who gave not the strength of feeling
And strength of labor both.
Thou'rt but a wooden carving,
Defaced of worms, and old;
Yet more to me thou couldst not be
Wert thou all wrapt in gold;
Like the gem-bedizened baby
Which, at the Twelfth-day noon,
They show from the Ara Cœli's steps
To a merry dancing tune.
Defaced of worms, and old;
Yet more to me thou couldst not be
Wert thou all wrapt in gold;
Like the gem-bedizened baby
Which, at the Twelfth-day noon,
They show from the Ara Cœli's steps
To a merry dancing tune.
152
I ask of thee no wonders,
No changing white or red;
I dream not thou art living;
I love and prize thee dead.
That salutary deadness
I seek through want and pain,
From which God's own high power can bid
Our virtue rise again.
No changing white or red;
I dream not thou art living;
I love and prize thee dead.
That salutary deadness
I seek through want and pain,
From which God's own high power can bid
Our virtue rise again.
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