University of Virginia Library

The sun was setting, and the good ship sailed
Into Massilia's harbour. On her prow,
All golden, glittering in the crimson light,
The Dioscuri shone. A motley crowd
Were mingled on the deck; swarth figures clothed
In strange apparel, from the further East,
Bringing their spice and balm from Lebanon
To tempt our western beauties; Æthiop boys,
Bound for the market, crouching side by side
With blue-eyed Thracians; merchants with their wares,
The wools of famed Miletus, and the dyes
Of Thyatira, noble in their hues,
As is the purple ocean when the sun,
Sinking in glory, flushes all the waves;
The woven goat's hair from Ancyra's loom,
And silver shrines of Artemis, and figs
From Smyrna's hills, and honey from the slopes
Of famed Hymettus, with its scent of thyme;
And strange, rich fruits that glowed in beds of moss,
The Median apple and the Pontic pear,
And rough pomegranate with its gem-like cells.
Jews too were there. the men of alien race
And alien creed, who shrank from Heathen touch,
And ate not with the others, but apart,
From well-filled baskets took their bread and fish,
With solemn words of blessing. They had come,
Dealers in gold and silver, goodly pearls,
And rubies rare, and purple amethysts
From Indian shores, a ransom for a king.

They landed and were scattered: some to friends
Who stood expectant; some to wile the time
In taverns, where the wine-cup circled round,
And song and dance made merry; some to trade
In the full market, where the dealers met.
But one there was, who, silent all the way,
Had companied with none; who, silent now
And lonely, waited on the quay, and found
No friends to welcome. No adventurer he,
With cunning wares; no wanderer roaming far
To see the cities, note the lives of men;
But fixed and strong in mood, as one who seeks
The longed-for goal, and slacks not till he finds.
Some eight-and-twenty summers he had seen,
And still the brow was smooth and eye undimmed,
As in youth's brightest prime; but all the glee,
The mirth, the sunshine of the golden dawn
Had vanished, and a twilight grey had come
Before its time. No curling locks flowed down,
Fragrant with spikenard, over silky vest;
No jewelled fingers played with golden chain;
But plain and rough he stood, as is the sage
Who calls the Porch his master; russet serge
Was all his raiment, and his hair, cut close
To noble brow, revealed the noble eye
That looked with eager glance on things and men,
And turned through all the mists from earth to Heaven.
Leaving that crowd, and threading on his way
Through street and lane, he passed unheeding by
The halls of senates and the shrines of gods,
And onward journeyed to the suburb poor
And dark and squalid, where Massilian Jews
Were fain to dwell. And coming there, he asked
For one named Eleazar. For a while
He found him not: they had not heard the name;
No Jew so called had traded in their mart,
Or worshipped in their synagogue. At last
Some traces met his search. In dreary huts,
Where hunger ever haunted, they could tell
Of bread that came from him, of angel words
From lips of sisters who, in constant love,
Had shared his home and helped him in his age:
And now they both were gone, and he was left.

So guided, the young stranger from the coasts
Of distant Asia found the mean abode
Of him he sought for. Knocking at the gate,
A low voice bade him enter, and he found,
Stretched on his couch, with snow-white hair and beard,
Calm with the calm of sunset, the old man
Whom he had sought so long, and heard his voice
As startled by the lifting of the latch:
“Who comes,” he asked, “at this unwonted hour
To break the usual stillness of my life?
What dost thou here, O stranger? Youth draws back
From age's death-bed. I have nought to give:
No heaped-up riches will reward the toil
That waits for dead men's treasures. Go thy way,
And leave me to myself; or tell thy tale
In fewest words, that I may rest again.”
So speaking, turning weary eyes, he looked
(As the one lamp shot forth its flickering gleam)
At the old book that lay beneath his hands,
At the rough cross that stood beside his couch,
At the white skull that spake to him of death.

But he, the stranger, meekly made reply.
“Nay, father, blame me not. I have not come
Through greed of gain, or aimless, poor caprice,
To break upon thy silence. I was told
By one I honour, one, of whom I think
Thou know'st the name, to seek thee in thine age.
Jochanan, once of green Bethsaida's hills,
Now elder of the Church of Ephesus,
He sends thee greeting, bids thee welcome me;
Reminds thee of the former days, of youth
Rescued from evil, of thy Lord's great love,
And adding message strange (when I in grief
And bitterness of heart was seeking help),
Bade thee to list my tale with open ears,
And, having heard it all, to tell me thine.”

“That name, my son,” the old man answered then,
“Recalls a vanished past. From distant years
Old faces throng around me, and the stream,
Long frozen into stillness, melts again,
And sweeps me on its current. Many a month
Has passed since last I heard it. Then they told
How he, with reverent fondness, lingered still,
As truest son to holiest mother vowed,
With her whose sorrow was like none on earth,
Till she too slept in peace, and then went forth
To bear his witness, and through many a clime
Pressed onward, till at last on Asia's shores
He landed, where the young Timotheos strove,
Unequal, with the dangers of the time,
And there abode. Since then no news has come,
And I would fain inquire how fares he now,
How meets he there the peril and the toil,
The life so strange to one whose earlier age
In quiet passed on fair Tiberias' lake,
Or Galilean hills, and now, when eld
Has come, dwells there in lordly Ephesus,
A prophet to the nations. I would know
If still that fiery temper flashes forth
Which marked him Son of Thunder, eagle eyes
Now filled with wrath, and now in ecstasy
Of silent love uplifted to the Throne;
Or have perchance the gathering shadows brought
To him, as unto me, the calm of eve,
Fair presage of the sweeter sleep of death?”

“What he is now,” the stranger answered then,
“My tale itself will show. In letters plain,
As in an open scroll, is written there
The man's whole being, all the pitying love,
And all the fiery wrath, and all the zeal
For God's unchanging truth. But I forget:
I linger on the threshold, and the way
Is long and weary, and the time is short.
My childhood grew in Smyrna. Happy years,
Blameless and pure, the orient dawn of life,
Passed on in silence. Mine the thrice-blest lot
To call a Christian, father, and to learn
My earliest lessons from a mother's lips
Who shared his faith and hope. And so I grew,
Not as the heathen youth, who reckless mock
The gods they worship, and with speech impure
Defile their widening thoughts, but blameless, clean
From spot of sensual taint. My voice was heard,
Clear, full, and strong to raise the lofty chant,
Or read the records of the saints of God,
Or tell the tale, that never waxes old,
The great good news of all the works of Christ.
So bright the morn, so dark and foul my sin,
Falling, as soon as I fell. The day drew near
When, trained to all the answers which the soul
With clearest conscience makes before its God,
I came to be baptised. The cleansing stream,
Bright as the river of the fount of life,
Flowed by me clear and calm. They plunged me in,
And I rose up new-born. With garments white
They clothed me, and awhile I lived as one
Who would not stain those garments by his sin,
Lest he, the teacher-priest with hoary hair,
Should sorrow o'er my fall. In earlier days,
When yet a youth, I caught his watchful eye:
My clear Hosanna drew his listening ear:
And, as of old his Master bade them bring
The little children, and with yearning love
Received them in His arms, so now thy friend,
With solemn words of blessing, laid his hands
Upon my waving hair, and gave me o'er
To Polycarp, the shepherd of our flock;
‘As one who, going on a journey, leaves
His choicest treasure to his chosen friend,
So leave I now with thee this fair young soul,
More precious than all noblest pearls of price,
For thee to watch and cherish. Take good heed
Thou fail not to restore with usury.’

“So parted he, and that good bishop strove
To keep his trust. He taught me, prayed with me,
And, as I told, went with me to the stream,
And brought me out of darkness into light.
But, ah! too soon the shadows gathered thick;
I wearied of that calm restraint of life,
And craved for joy, and fame, and high emprise,
And fellowship with others of mine age.
They gathered round me, and their life flowed on,
In one full stream of mirth, and song, and glee;
They drew me to their banquets; rich and bright
The red wine sparkled in the golden cups,
And wreaths of roses scented all the air,
And Tyrian couches wooed voluptuous rest;
And songs like those which once Anacreon sang
Woke echoes in the air; and dark-eyed girls
Wove the gay dance, and kindled young desire.
I listened, looked, and yielded. Bright and fresh
That life appeared. I shared those joyous feasts,
And bound myself to join, for weal or woe,
The band whose labours bore such goodly fruit:
Nor did I shrink when time stripped off the veil
That hid the inner foulness, and disclosed
A den of robbers. On each hand that seized
My hand with brother's grasp were stains of blood;
Those golden cups were torn from dying men;
Those fair young girls lured victims to their doom:
And yet I drew not back. I sought to quench
The pain of guilt by ever new desires,
The restless venture and the lawless love;
And, strong and bold as is the unbroken steed,
I gloried in my shame, and, sinning once,
Sinned on exulting, chief, supreme in guilt.

“So lived I: and the madness of the time
Had well-nigh blotted out the thoughts of youth,
The holy forms, and faces calm and pale
Which once had been familiar, when it chanced
That two, who owned me captain of their band,
Brought in a prisoner. Old he was, and weak;
And yet he trembled not, nor offered gold
As ransom; nor on bended knees begged life;
But, like a traveller who has reached his goal,
Like shepherd who has found his wandering sheep,
Cried out, exulting, ‘Onward! lead me on!
I seek your master: to this end am come
Five long days' journey; lead me on to him.’
They led him in: and lo! I knew at once
The great Apostle; saw the self-same face,
Transfigured with the glory of his love,
And heard the deep, full tones that once, of old,
Had spoken words of blessing. Flushed with shame,
I would have turned and fled; but he pressed on,
Forgetting age's weakness, and with cries
Eager and broken into sobs, pursued.
‘My child; mine own! why fleest thou from me,
Thy father? Old I am, and all unarmed
To do thee hurt. Oh! fear me not, my son,
But rather pity. Yet is hope of life;
I, I will make thy peace with Christ, my Lord;
I will endure thy scourging, die thy death,
And as the Lord did give His life for us,
Will offer mine for thee. Oh, stay! Oh, turn!
Believe me, Christ hath sent me.’

“So I stood,
With eyes bent low, and, casting down my spear,
In sudden tremor shook in every limb,
And, falling at his feet, I wept for shame,
Weeping for joy as well. The evil taint
That poisoned all my life was healed; I stood
Once more renewed, baptised again with tears.

“The change had come. The better life went on:
But still I wavered: visions of the past
Still vexed the brain; the snake still slept within:
And ever and anon its venom ran,
Stirring the pulses of the old desire,
Benumbing holier purpose. Then the gloom
Of hopeless sadness seized me. Awful words,
‘Too late!’ ‘In vain!’ were written on my life;
And then in my distress I turned to him,
My father and my guide, and sought for help:—
‘Give me some spell to bid these visions flee;
Some charm to raise me from this blank despair.
These hands hang down, and on the upward path
These feeble knees wax weary. Is there none
Whose feet have travelled on the self-same track,
Who knows the deep recesses of our life,
The hidden things of darkness, and can give
The secret of his conquest? Thou, O saint!
The loved one of thy Lord, from earliest youth
Spotless and pure, hast never known my fall,
Nor sinned as I have sinned. With all thy love,
Thou canst not gauge my weakness; and I shrink
From vexing thee with all my tales of woe,
The haunting echoes of the sin-stained past.’

“And thus he gave his answer. ‘Know, my son,
Thy help comes not from man. No brother's arm
Can stay thee in that conflict. Yet there lives
One who knows more than others,—one whose eyes
Have looked behind the veil, and, learning there
The mysteries of death, have seen his life
Far other than he deemed. And he, perchance,
May give thee what thou seekest. He, at last
Victorious in a strife where once he failed,
May tell the secret of his late success.
But thou must journey far: on distant shores,
Where ships bound westward bring our Asian wares
Into Massilia's harbour, dwells the man
Of whom I tell thee. Once there lived with him
Two sisters, pure and saintly, serving God,
One most in action, one in thought and prayer;
But if they live I know not. He, I trust,
Is not yet gone. Long since he pledged his word,
Whene'er he heard the summons to depart,
To send me tidings. Then my lips may tell
The wondrous tale which now the silence veils:
Till then those lips are sealed, and thou must hear
The story from himself. God speed thy way,
And when thou reachest far Massilia's port,
Go, ask for Eleazar (or, perchance,
They call him Lazarus there), and say from me,
His friend Jochanan greets him, and for love
Of his dear Lord beseeches him to hear
Thy tale, and, having heard, to tell thee his.’”

Then answered Eleazar. “Mine is not
The wisdom that thou seekest; yet, may-be,
From this poor, faltering tongue our God shall send
His oracle of peace. Know first, our paths
Are not the same. My guilt was not as thine;
I never knew the danger or the joy
Of that wild robber-life. My days were spent
In blameless peace and study of our law,
And frequent prayers; and all our Rabbis taught,
Who sat in Moses' seat, I learnt and did.
Of all the youth in great Jerusalem
My fame stood fairest, and the honoured seats,
Nearest the ark, in every synagogue
Were offered me of right. And yet I sinned
A seven-fold sin, corroding all the life,
More deadly far than thine, defying cure,
But for the mercy, wide and wonderful,
Of God our Father.

How my earlier years
Were taught, I told thee. In that morn of life
My father died, and I was left of three
The youngest, yet the heir. The stored-up wealth
Of many years; rich robes of gorgeous hue,
And gems that sparkled, set in Ophir's gold,
And coins of many lands, and bonds that pledged
The borrower to the highest rate of use,
And wide-spread fields, and vineyards planted thick
With choicest vine, and barns that still o'erflowed
With corn, heaped up against a time of dearth
To sell at famine prices;—this was mine:
And those who honoured most my virtues, bowed
Yet more before my wealth.

Yet One there was
Who bowed to neither: One whose life rebuked
Our selfish quiet. A Rabbi, like the rest,
He came among us; taught in synagogues,
And reasoned in the Temple; yet our Scribes
Disowned Him; for His youth had grown in shade,
Away from all the schools where seven long years
The sons of Hillel or of Shammai toil
Through law, tradition, comment, till at last
The Master of the Wise, with solemn state,
The key of knowledge placing in their hands,
Admits them to their office. He had learnt
His wisdom elsewhere, startling all men's minds
With mighty words, as one who, clothed with power,
Came as a prophet. And the words were strange,
And stranger yet the life. Not clad as they
In stately robes that swept the ground they trod,
With golden ring, and ivory staff, and shoes
Of costliest texture; but in sackcloth coarse,
The raiment of the poorest, and the thongs
Of leathern sandals tied across His feet,
So stood He in our presence.

And the themes
Were startling that He spake of. I have heard
Our wisest teachers talk in full debate,
And fill our Sanhedrim with floods of speech,
Hot, vehement, and angry; arguing still,
If men, who vowed their substance to the Lord,
Might feed their father's or their mother's age,
Or in their zeal must leave them both to starve;
Or whether on the holy Sabbath morn
The fisherman who set his nets o'ernight,
Might leave them while he rested; or, if storm
Should fall upon his flock, the shepherd's feet
Might without blame go forth upon the hills
To seek the wandering sheep. All this I heard
Day after day debated: but the man
Of whom I speak came preaching other things
Than this,—God's kingdom for the pure and meek;
Peace, love, forgiveness, to the contrite heart;
The blessings of the poor, the snares and woes
Which wealth and praise and honour bring to men.
We listened and we smiled. ‘The peasant's son
Speaks as a peasant; grudges us the pay
And honour of our calling; fain would rise
Upon our downfall.’ So they spake: and I,
In my thick darkness thought and spake as they.

“But soon within the circle of my home
That Teacher came. I was not there that day:
But Martha to our home invited Him,
As women love to welcome honoured guests,
The Rabbis and the Scribes who wend their way
From school to school; and there with active zeal
She spread the board with dainties; bade our slaves
Be quick and active, kill the fatted calf,
And gather figs and grapes, and pour the wine
Of Eshcol, spiced with balm of Lebanon.
But Miriam, younger, gentler, sat and gazed
At that strange presence, and her heart was drawn
To listen to His speech; and he spake on,
Discoursing of the Kingdom, and the Love
Embracing all, and Faith that wins the crown,
And leaving all for God. And she sat there,
Still listening, while her sister laboured on,
Vexed, wroth, and weary; and at last, with words
Of murmur, spake her grievance: ‘Care'st thou not,
O Sir! that I through all the noon-tide heat
Am slaving for Thy sake; while she sits there,
Calm and at ease, beneath the sheltering vine,
And dreams and listens?’ But the Lord replied:
‘Ah! Martha, Martha! vexed with many things,
Troubled and worn art thou. But one alone
Is needful; and that one good part is hers
Who hears from me the words of endless life.’

“I heard the tale, returning to my home:
But still it changed me not. Some haunting doubts
Rose up unbidden; but I crushed them down,
Half mocking at myself and half at Him,
As vexed by mystic dreams which stronger souls
Pass by unheeding.

“So it chanced, one day,
We stood and listened with the meaning smile
And whispered taunt, as men who watch the words
Of some wild zealot, when he speaks again,
Still harping on the thoughts that eat his soul,
The threadbare topics of his thrice-told tale.
When, lo! He told a tale we had not heard:
And as He told it, with His eye full fixed
On me, He spake my name. I turned, and gazed
In wonder, for it was not thus His wont
With names to deck His stories. Stranger still,
He told of one unnamed, whose life, like mine,
Was rich in all the joys that wealth can give,
Fine linen, purple, sumptuous feasts and wine:
And he, when life was over, passed at once
Into the outer darkness and the flames
That burn in Hades; while for him who bore
My name there oped the gates of Paradise,
And angels bore him to his blissful home.
But note the wonder of that mystic tale:
The Lazarus who lay on Abraham's breast,
The Lazarus whom angels bore on high,
On earth lay crouching at the rich man's gate,
A beggar full of sores. I felt the sting
Of that concealed rebuke. ‘Is this,’ I asked,
‘The crown of true obedience? Must I die,
I, Eleazar, honoured, blameless, rich,
And pass to torments? If I seek to gain
The fair, green fields of Eden, must I live
As Eleazar, homeless, friendless, poor,
The dogs my only comforters?’ And then,
What meant that strange conclusion: ‘If the law
Avail not, nor the prophets, who will hear,
Though one returning from the dead should speak?
Had we not listened to the law of God,
Who read it day and night? What need had we
Of new persuasion? If the thing might be,
That rising from the dead, what more could come
Than what we knew already? Every bound
Of Heaven and Hell our scribes had mapped and planned,
As men mark out the region of their home,
Assigning that to these, their friends, themselves,
And this to heathens, or Samaria's sons,
Or hated rivals.’

“So I reasoned still,
And turned away in anger. But the dream
Pursued me; night and day it filled my soul;
The speechless terrors banished all my rest;
I panted after peace. And so I came
Once more to hear, not now with curling lip,
And brow uplifted, but with eager step,
Low bending down, (I, Lazarus, the rich,
The ruler, bowing at His feet who came
From Nazareth, the carpenter!) I sought
With words of studied honour, on my knees,
To gain the peace I needed. ‘What good thing,
O thou good teacher, wilt Thou bid me do,
That I may call the Life Eternal mine?’
I asked in earnest, but it pleased Him not,
That ready homage. ‘Why speakest thou of good?
Why comes that word so lightly from thy lips,
When none is good but God? If true thy search
For Life Eternal, keep His holy Laws,
The few great words which in thine earliest years
Thy mother taught thee.’ Then, as one who gives
A child his lesson, one by one He spake
The precepts which our Jewish boys repeat,
As of the Second Table. I, amazed,
Looked still for something more. Had I for this
Come, fighting down my pride, to climb the heights
Of truth and wisdom, willing to accept
New rules of fasting, or new forms of prayer,
Or with the Nazarite's vow to cleanse my way?
And now the Teacher sent me back to school,
To take my place there on its lowest form,
With boys of ten? So, not without a touch
Of anger and reproof, I answer made,
‘All these are common and familiar things,
And I have kept them from my earliest youth.
What lack I yet to make my life complete?’
Then, with a smile half-sad, as one who sees
In some high-minded, noble boy the germs
Of future evil, so He looked on me
With wistful pity. And he kissed my brow,
As Rabbis do with scholars whom they love,
And with a subtle tone of something more
Than met the ear, went on. ‘Ah! this is well;
But yet thou lackest one thing. Sell thy goods,
Give to the poor, and, taking up thy cross,
Follow thou me, and thou. be sure, shalt have
Treasure in Heaven.’

“I heard, dismayed and sad,
The words that came like lightning o'er my soul,
And blasted all my hopes. To give up all,
The silver, and the garments, and the lands,
And be as those who by the Temple-gates
Sit asking alms;—would nothing less suffice,
No copious tithes of corn, and wine, and oil,
Extending to the cummin and the mint;
No bounteous offerings to the Corban chest,
So large that men should spread with trumpet voice
My praises through the land? I never dreamt
Of such a work as this; and yet beyond
That depth His words disclosed a lower deep.
Not poverty alone, but shame and woe;
To bear my cross, as I have sometimes seen
The sad procession pass our city's gates,
Each rebel-robber bearing on his back
The beam on which to hang. Is this the King,
The Son of David, the expected Christ,
Who comes to give us freedom? Am I called
To follow Him in that?

“I turned aside
With brow o'erclouded, and with downcast eyes
That told of inward conflict, half-impelled
To yield to Him whose words had thrilled my soul,
Half-shrinking from the sacrifice He claimed.
Slowly I turned, and as I went my way,
I heard that clear, calm voice in saddest tones,
‘How hardly shall the rich man find out God,
And enter into Heaven!’ And then a sound
Of murmured questions, and, at last, once more,
The same low sweetness, as of one who prays,
‘Impossible with man, but not with God;’
And then I heard no more.

“Ere many days
A fever laid me low: through all my veins
Rushed the hot blood that filled with spectral forms
The darkness round me. What availed it then
To count the coin, the garments, and the bonds?
Those golden wine-cups would not quench my thirst;
Those gems showed hideous on my purpled skin;
The spikenard ointment served no more for feasts,
Breathing its odorous breath: they kept it back
For that last use when o'er the senseless dead,
All stiff and cold, they pour the rich perfume.
So sharp the fever that it smote me down,
Left me no power to think, or will, or pray,
One painful stupor till its course was run;
And round me came the mourners, wailing loud,
(The best were hired in all Jerusalem,
As suited to my rank) and raised their cries,
‘Ah me! my brother, who will comfort now
Thy sisters and thy friends? Ah me! Ah me!
The God of Abraham takes thee to thy place
In Abraham's bosom,’ and with claspèd hands,
Beating their breasts, they went on, hour by hour,
‘Alas! Ah me! Who now will be our joy?
Our eyes' desire is taken at a stroke.’
And then the Rabbis gathered, some who came
Because they loved me, some in pride of state,
To show that they too knew me, and they spake
Of all my many virtues: ‘What a life
Cut off before its time! In ten years' space
He might have been, of all our Sanhedrim,
Held most in honour!’—Then, with 'bated breath,
‘But after all, what is, perchance, is best.
He had his weakness, half-inclined to own
That half-mad Nazarene. Those sisters there
Have made no secret of it. Rumour tells
They had Him to their house. Well, let us hope
This warning blow may bring them back to us.’
So spake they, but they knew not all the while
I heard them in Gehenna. In mine ears
Their praise was hateful, and that ‘half-inclined’
Came floating to me as the knell of doom,
The witness of my guilt. But ‘half-inclined!’
Oh! had that ‘half’ been whole I had not been
In that thick darkness, wailing bitterly.
How long I lay I knew not, for the lost
Count not their time by days, and months, and years,
But one long, dreary, everlasting Now
Is ever with them. Every thought of sin
Becomes a drear abyss of boundless woe,
And every act, a moment's sudden heat,
Expands into an æon. All my life
Lay spread before me as an open scroll;
The earliest lust, the boyish greed of praise,
The false dissemblance, and the speech unkind,
These came upon me from the abysmal depths
Where Memory's fountains pour their seething floods,
And whelmed me in their torrent. Ah! my son,
If 'twere for this Jochanan sent thee here,
Heed thou my words. The man who once has looked
Behind the veil which severs death from life,
He would not venture, all the world to win,
One single thought against the Eternal Law.
We know not now the power of every soul
To be its own tormentor. Here on earth
We cheat ourselves with comfort. Easy days,
And pleasant feasts, and praise of many friends,
These dull our thoughts. Amid the din of arms,
Or strife of sects, or words of hot debate,
Or painter's art, or skill of poet's speech,
Or sweetest music, we forget our guilt,
And drug our spirits to a death-like sleep:
With loud-toned prayers, and anthems full and clear,
We drown the inward voice: the scribe, self-blind,
Examining his conscience, shuts out God.
But there no shadows come between the soul
And that consuming holiness of God:
There, face to face, we stand before the Light
That lighteth all men, and its glorious rays,
The joy and bliss of all who love the Truth,
Become, for those who hate, the Eternal Fire:
And Memory dwells not there on former years,
As now, with pleasant thoughts of pleasant sins,
But preying on the spirit evermore,
Lives on and on, the worm that dieth not.

“So was I, hopeless in my utter woe,
When, breaking through the silence of the grave,
Through all the darkness of that drear abyss,
The same clear voice cried, ‘Lazarus, come forth;
And once again I woke, as from a dream,
Looked out once more upon the world of life,
And swathed in grave-clothes, head and hands and feet,
Stood there all wondering, looking out on Him
Whose word had called me. Still His cheeks were wet
With tears of love, of tenderness, of grief;
The sounds of prayer still trembled on the lips;
The eyes were bright, as when the angels look
With joy from Heaven on one repentant soul.
And then I saw it all, the love, the power,
The wisdom, that had guided all the past.
In that strange story which had roused my fears
No Lazarus came to tell the secret things
That lie behind the veil, but now on earth
There stood a Lazarus who had looked on death,
And lived to bear his witness.

“Need I tell,
My son, the further story of my life?
The change was wrought. I stayed no longer now;
But bore at once the Cross. They sought my life;
I lived each day as still expecting death;
And gave up all I had, and fed the poor
In one great feast, to which the Master came,
With all His followers. Martha showed her love,
Still active, eager, but by love made free
From all her many cares, and Miriam now,
Her joy and gladness rushing into act,
Brought forth her precious ointment, costly store,
That might have paid a labourer all his wage
Throughout the circling year, and poured it out
Upon the Lord's dear feet. I spake not then;
Upon my lips the seal of silence lay,
And still the fear of death was on my soul.
‘Is Hades conquered?’ I had asked when first
I looked on light anew, ‘or must I die
The common death of all men?’ Could I smile,
Hearing I stood, death's terrors still in sight,
As men may smile who have not crossed the stream?
Not so, but thought and vigil, prayer and fast,
These filled the hours, and evermore I sought
To know how He who saved me lived His life,
Not with the crowd, or teaching in the streets,
Or breaking bread with friends, but when alone
He with His Father communed secretly.
And one clear moonlight night I followed Him
To that calm garden of Gethsemane,
Where oft He made resort. All now was gone,
My land, my gold, my robes; I kept back nought
But the few weeds I wore, and still I stored,
As precious relic of a priceless boon,
The winding-sheet of linen, white and clean,
In which they wrapt me. At the midnight hour,
Casting that sheet around me, I stole on,
From Bethany and over Olivet,
And neared the garden. As the moonlight shone,
I saw the three, the foremost of the Twelve,
Weary and spent with toil, stretched out in sleep,
As men too tired to watch, too weak to pray.
But He was there, the pale face paler seen,
As on it fell the moonbeams, and the sweat
Dropt down from brow and face in agony;
And as I nearer drew, I heard the cry
(Strange echo of the words once heard before),
‘With Thee, O Father, all is possible.’
And then, as yielding up His will to God's,
He left it all to that Almighty Love
To give or to refuse.

“What more I saw
I need not tell. Thou know'st it in the tale
Which every Church receives, the shame, the scourge,
The cross, the death, the burial, and the morn
Of that bright Rising. Yet there dwells with me
One moment in my life I may not pass.
As I stood listening, from the Kedron vale
The crowd streamed forth, with torches, clubs, and swords,
And thronging through the garden seized on Him,
And led Him captive. The eight, and then the three,
Alarmed, confused, forsook their Lord and fled.
I followed breathless, but the moonlight's gleam,
Falling on that white robe, betrayed my form;
And, seeing in me one they sought to slay,
They seized me also, caught the linen sheet,
And when I left it in their hands and fled,
And plunged into the darkness, there I knelt
(The cold moon falling on the olive boughs
To which I fled for shelter) naked, poor,
Hunted, alone. ‘Now,’ thought I, ‘there is hope;
The world has left me homeless as my Lord;
No single rag of all his former state
Now cleaves to Eleazar.’

“Since that hour
Full fifty years have passed; yet still I live
As one who asks for this day's bread alone.
I toil, and am content. Through all the change
Of life I bear my cross, and follow Him:
On distant shores, amid an alien race,
My brethren's foes, I linger out my days.
My sisters did their work, and fell asleep,
And I am left alone; yet not alone,
For Christ, my Lord, is with me. Thou, my son,
Hast seen me how I live; and I have told
The tale Jochanan bade thee ask to hear.
And now the stars are shining, and mine eyes
With age and thought are weary: and lest I,
Like those three sleepers in Gethsemane,
Should fail to watch one hour, I bid thee go.
Watch thou and pray; and if to-morrow's sun
Rise on thy soul with healing on its wings,
Or if there dwells aught yet upon thy soul
Wherein thou seekest counsel, come once more
And open out thine heart; and I will speak,
As Christ has taught me through these circling years,
The secrets of His truth. His peace be thine!”

So parted they, the old man and the youth:
One turning to his skull, his cross, his book;
One wandering through the strange bewildering town.
And over all the moon poured golden light,
And fair Massilia's waters slumbered calm;
And fairer yet and calmer were the thoughts
That dawned, faint-gleaming, on the wanderer's soul;
But as the moonlight, flecked and dimmed with clouds,
Shone on the waters rippled by the breeze,
So o'er his spirit passed opposing moods,
Now bright with hope, now half perplexed with fear,
Now clear in faith, now clouded o'er in doubt.