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Idylls of the Bible

Chapter 15: CHRIST’S ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
By Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
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About This Book

A series of lyrical and dramatic reworkings of biblical narratives and devotional poems that recast familiar scriptural episodes as intimate scenes and moral reflections. Scenes dramatize pivotal moments—an infant rescued on a river, exchanges between royal figures and nurturers—while other pieces offer compact moral parables and domestic monologues meditating on suffering, charity, and faith. Language alternates between theatrical dialogue, descriptive lyricism, and moral exhortation, emphasizing themes of compassion, maternal love, liberation, and personal conscience. The collection invites readers to reconsider sacred stories through emotive characterization and accessible moral verse.

CHRIST’S ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.

He had plunged into our sorrows,
And our sin had pierced his heart,
As before him loomed death’s shadow,
And he knew he must depart.
But they hailed him as a victor
As he into Salem came,
And the very children shouted
Loud hosannas to his name.
But he knew behind that triumph,
Rising gladly to the sky,
Soon would come the cries of malice:
Crucify him! Crucify!
Onward rode the blessed Saviour,
Conscious of the coming strife
Soon to break in storms of hatred
Round his dear, devoted life.
Ghastly in its fearful anguish
Rose the cross before his eyes,
But he saw the joy beyond it,
And did all the shame despise.
Joy to see the cry of scorning
Through the ages ever bright,
And the cross of shame transfigured
To a throne of love and light.
Joy to know his soul’s deep travail
Should not be a thing in vain,
And that joy and peace should blossom
From his agonizing pain.