 | Lazarus And other Poems |  |
So life went on. Near thirty years had passed,
When through our village came the strangest band
That ever travelled through Galatia's vales:
No merchants they, with pearls, or purple robes,
Or precious spikenard in the milk-white vase,
Or golden goblets; no centurions, come
To take our numbers, and to tax our farms;
Nor yet as pilgrims hasting to the shrine
Of Pessinus, where Cybele holds sway,
Mother of all the gods, with crown of towers.
Like none of these they came, those travellers three;
One in full age, dark-eyed, with eagle face,
Like those whom in Pisidian synagogues
Men know as Rabbis. Grave he was, and oft
Could speak to touch men's hearts, and stir their fears
With words of coming woe: yet not of him
Thought we most then, or most remember now.
The next was young and slender, scarcely past
His eighteenth summer, gentle as a girl,
Shrinking from each rude gaze, or jesting word;
A hidden fire within his lustrous eyes,
Telling of musings deep; and pale, thin cheeks,
Bearing their witness of the midnight watch
And fast prolonged, and conquest over self;
Timotheos, so they called him, won our love,
And paid it back with tears: yet not of him
Thought we most then, or most remember now.
The third who journeyed with them, weak and worn,
Blear-eyed, dim-visioned, bent and bowed with pain,
We looked upon with wonder. Not for him
The praise of form heroic, supple limbs,
The glory of the sculptor as he moulds
The locks of Zeus o'erspreading lofty brows;
Apollo, the Far-darter, in the pride
Of manhood's noblest beauty, or the grace
Of sandalled Hermes, messenger of gods:
Not thus he came, but clad in raiment worn,
Of roughest texture, bearing many stains
Of age and travel. In his hand he bore
A staff, on which he leant as one whose limbs
Have lost before their time the strength of youth;
And underneath his arm a strange, old book,
Whose mystic letters seemed for him the words
Of wisdom and of truth. And oft he read,
In solemn cadence, words that thrilled his soul,
And, lighting that worn face with new-born gleam,
Bade him go on rejoicing.
When through our village came the strangest band
That ever travelled through Galatia's vales:
55
Or precious spikenard in the milk-white vase,
Or golden goblets; no centurions, come
To take our numbers, and to tax our farms;
Nor yet as pilgrims hasting to the shrine
Of Pessinus, where Cybele holds sway,
Mother of all the gods, with crown of towers.
Like none of these they came, those travellers three;
One in full age, dark-eyed, with eagle face,
Like those whom in Pisidian synagogues
Men know as Rabbis. Grave he was, and oft
Could speak to touch men's hearts, and stir their fears
With words of coming woe: yet not of him
Thought we most then, or most remember now.
The next was young and slender, scarcely past
His eighteenth summer, gentle as a girl,
Shrinking from each rude gaze, or jesting word;
A hidden fire within his lustrous eyes,
Telling of musings deep; and pale, thin cheeks,
Bearing their witness of the midnight watch
And fast prolonged, and conquest over self;
Timotheos, so they called him, won our love,
And paid it back with tears: yet not of him
Thought we most then, or most remember now.
The third who journeyed with them, weak and worn,
56
We looked upon with wonder. Not for him
The praise of form heroic, supple limbs,
The glory of the sculptor as he moulds
The locks of Zeus o'erspreading lofty brows;
Apollo, the Far-darter, in the pride
Of manhood's noblest beauty, or the grace
Of sandalled Hermes, messenger of gods:
Not thus he came, but clad in raiment worn,
Of roughest texture, bearing many stains
Of age and travel. In his hand he bore
A staff, on which he leant as one whose limbs
Have lost before their time the strength of youth;
And underneath his arm a strange, old book,
Whose mystic letters seemed for him the words
Of wisdom and of truth. And oft he read,
In solemn cadence, words that thrilled his soul,
And, lighting that worn face with new-born gleam,
Bade him go on rejoicing.
| Lazarus And other Poems | |