The open sea

Everything! Counter and scales—
I’ll take whatever you give.
I’m through, and off to Athens,
Where a man like me can live.

And Hipparch, the baker, is going;
My chum, who came with me
To follow the crowds who follow
The prophet of Galilee.

We two were there at Damascus
Dealing in figs and wine.
Nice little business! Some one
Said: “Here, I’ll give you a line!

“Buy fish, and set up a booth,
Get a tent and make your bread.
There are thousands who come to listen,
They are hungry and must be fed.”

And so we went. Believe me,
There were crowds, and hungry, too.
Five thousand stood in the desert
And listened the whole day through.

Famished? Well, yes. The disciples
Were saying to send them away
To buy their bread in the village,
But the prophet went on to say:

“Feed them yourselves, O you
Of little faith.” But they said:
“We have just five little fishes
And two little loaves of bread.”

We heard it, me and Hipparch,
And rubbed our hands. You see
We were there to make some money
In the land of Galilee.

We had stock in plenty. We waited.
I wiped the scales, and my chum
Re-stacked the loaves. We bellowed,
But no one seemed to come.

“Fresh fish!” I bawled my lungs out:
“Nice bread!” poor Hipparch cried,
But what did they do? Sat down there
In fifties, side by side,
In ranks, the whole five thousand.
Then—well, the prophet spoke,
And broke the five little fishes,
And the two little loaves he broke.

And fed the whole five thousand.
Why, yes! So gorged they slept.
And we stood beaten and bankrupt.
Poor Hipparch swore and wept.

They gathered up twelve baskets
Full from the loaves of bread;
Five little fishes—twelve baskets
Of fragments after they fed.

And we—what was there to do
But dump our stock on the sand?
That’s what we got for our labor
And thrift, in such a land.

We met a man near Damascus
Who had joined the mystagogues.
He said: “I was wicked as you men
Until I lost my hogs.”

Now Hipparch and I are going
To Athens, beautiful, free.
No more adventures for us two
In the land of Galilee.

THE FIG TREE

(Matthew, Chapter XXI.)

With all of the rest of my troubles my fig tree’s withered and gone.
It stood in the road, you know, I haven’t much of a lawn.
I step from my door to a step, and from that right into the street.
Just the same I sat under my tree, as a shade from the noonday heat.

Camels came by and asses, caravans, footmen, too;
Soldiers of Cæsar saw me and ate of my tree, nor drew
Ax nor sword to the branches, nor even a hack on the bole.
Now what had I done or my tree? I call it an evil dole

To a tree that must rest as a man rests. Why last year what a crop!
Figs all over the branches, from lower limb to top.
The tree was resting this year, contenting itself with leaves,
If magic comes of believing, beware the man who believes.

If faith can remove a mountain, then faith, I say, beware.
Some morn I’ll look toward Olivet and find it no longer there.
These fellows can blast our vineyards, level our hills or remove.
And what does it prove but faith, what other good does it prove?

Nothing at all! Just magic, like Egypt’s cunning breed.
And to do such things with faith the size of a mustard seed!
What is there need of more? If you gave them faith as a pear
They would set Orion dancing around the paws of the Bear;

Make the heavens fall on our heads, the whole world ruin and wreck;
Slay us and our children, slave us, put the yoke on our neck;
Smash cities to strengthen the village, have life just as they would.
And make that evil which is not, make evil into a good.

Anyway he came, he was hungry, and it was break of dawn.
He ran to my tree expectant, saw nothing but leaves thereon.
Then raged for the lack of figs, no grace for the years that it bore.
And he said may no fruit grow hereon forevermore.

With that my tree curled up like a leaf in a windy blaze.
I was standing here on my step half blind in a sudden maze.
Then he said: have faith and do what I have done to this tree,
Or say to the mountains move and be cast into the sea.

So now I have no shade at noon under leafy boughs,
Why the tree was good for resting, cooler than in the house,
If it never bore again, if the life is more than meat
Why not this tree for my dreams, though he found no figs to eat.

But I swear it had borne next year, it was only taking a rest.
There’s too many saints who are straining the world to a dream in the breast.
Next year no figs for Cæsar, and none for myself, what’s worse,
If this be the work of faith, then faith itself is a curse.

TRIBUTE MONEY

(Matthew, Chapter XXII: 24-27.)

This is all of the story
Capernaum stood in the way,
The takers of tribute came:
“Does your master tribute pay?”

And Peter ran to Jesus,
And Jesus answered him: “Nay!
Do the kings of the earth have tribute
From their own children, pray?

“Or do they get it of strangers?”
And Peter answered him: “Yea.”
Then Jesus said: “This is Galilee,
Should Galileans pay?

“But yet lest we offend them
There’s a fish out there in the bay
With a silver coin in his mouth—
Go catch the fish and pay.”

Did Jesus mean to mock
The tariff laws of the day:
That Peter could catch the fish
As likely as he would pay?

Did he mean to resist or yield
If Peter was lucky that day?
I, Matthew, tell you no more,
And Mark and Luke don’t say.

Did we enter the gate, or sit
Where the rocks and olives are gray?
Right then there was better matter
For a follower to portray.

The multitude gathered. He called
A child to him from its play,
And set the child in our midst;
And then he began to say:—

“This is the kingdom of heaven.”
And he took its hand and smiled.
“The kingdom of heaven,” he said,
“Is like the heart of a child.”

And I say, if this be true,
The Kingdom is surely defiled
By laws, and tariffs and kings
Unknown to the heart of a child.

THE GREAT MERGER

(Exodus, Chapter XX.)

Philo, the worst has come,
All we foresaw and feared:
Delphos will soon be dumb,
Eleusis felled and cleared.

Not only Marduk and Bel
Shamash, Nana, and Sin
Are doomed to be swallowed. Rebel?
It is too late to begin.

They have worked for this merger for years;
They have bullied, lied and coerced.
They have played with curses and tears.
And now at last is the worst:

For Zeus goes into the bowl
Of Cyclops, thoroughly blended.
The brew is Jehovah, a Soul
Envious, sour, commended

And forced to our lips. His son
And another, the Holy Ghost,
Are mixed with him, there is none
Not stirred in the mixture and lost

Of the gods we loved. They say
There is only one god, not many.
Well, who knows, we of clay,
If there be a thousand, or any?

They say there is one—all right!
They take over all the rest.
And so there is one, we can fight,
Argue, pray and protest;

Set up a booth to Apollo,
Athene; bawl and persuade.
The crowds no longer follow—
Jehovah has got the trade.

For the Jews have used the scheme
Of commerce for making a god:
A harbor where no trireme
But their own can dock or load.

Now who will come to dissolve
This theo-monopoly?
And the power they took devolve
On a mightier deity?

It will come. But as for Zeus,
Osiris, Ptah, Zoroaster,
They are stewed in the dominant juice
Of Jehovah, lord and master.

We accept the fate. We laugh.
The earth, the sea and the sky
Are at last the cenotaph
Of gods, who always die.

AT DECAPOLIS

(Mark, Chapter V.)

1
THE ACCUSATION

I am a farmer and live
Two miles from Decapolis.
Where is the magistrate? Tell me
Where the magistrate is!

Here I had made provision
For children and wife,
And now I have lost my all;
I am ruined for life.

I, a believer, too,
In the synagogues,—
What is the faith to me?
I have lost my hogs.

Two thousand hogs as fine
As ever you saw,
Drowned and choked in the sea—
I want the law!

They were feeding upon a hill
When a strolling teacher
Came by and scared my hogs—
They say he’s a preacher,

And cures the possessed who haunt
The tombs and bogs.
All right; but why send devils
Into my hogs?

They squealed and grunted and ran
And plunged in the sea.
And the lunatic laughed who was healed,
Of the devils free.

Devils or fright, no matter
A fig or a straw.
Where is the magistrate, tell me—
I want the law!

2
JESUS BEFORE MAGISTRATE AHAZ

Ahaz, there in the seat of judgment, hear,
If you have wit to understand my plea.
Swine-devils are too much for swine, that’s clear.
Poor man possessed of such is partly free.

Is neither drowned, destroyed at once, his chains
May pluck while running, howling through the mire
And take a little gladness for his pains,
Some fury for unsatisfied desire.

But hogs go mad at once. All this I knew,—
But then this lunatic had rights. You grant
Swine-devils had him in their clutch and drew
His baffled spirit. How significant,

As they were legion and so named! The point
Is, life bewildered, torn in greed and wrath;—
Desire puts a spirit out of joint.
Swine-devils are for swine who have no path.

But man with many lusts, what is his way,
Save in confusion, through accustomed rooms?
He prays for night to come, and for the day
Amid the miry places and the tombs.

But hogs run to the sea. And there’s an end.
Would I might cast the swinish demons out
From man forever. Yet the word attend.
The lesson of the thing what soul can doubt?

What is the loss of hogs, if man be saved?
What loss of lands and houses, man being free?
Clothed in his reason sits the man who raved,
Clean and at peace, your honor. Come and see.

Your honor shakes a frowning head. Not loth,
Speaking more plainly, deeper truth to draw;
Do your judicial duty, yet I clothe
Free souls with courage to transgress the law.

By casting demons out from self, or those
Like this poor lunatic whom your synagogues
Would leave to battle singly with his woes—
What is a man’s soul to a drove of hogs?

Which being lost, men play the hypocrite
And make the owner chief in the affair.
You banish me for witchcraft. I submit.
Work of this kind awaits me everywhere.

And into swine where better they belong,
Casting the swinish devils out of men,
The devils have their place at last, and then
The man is healed who had them—where’s the wrong,

Save to the owner? Well, your synagogues
Make the split hoof and chewing of the cud
The test of lawful flesh. Not so are hogs.
This rule has been the statute since the flood.

Ahaz, your judgment has a fatal flaw.
Is it not so with judges first and last—
You break the law to specialize the law?—
This is the devil that from you I cast.

THE SINGLE STANDARD

(St. John, Chapter VIII.)

It was known through Judea, we knew it:—
That Joseph beguiled
By mercy for Mary espoused,
And already with child,

Before they had come to each other,
Would put her away
In secret, before the Sanhedrin
Could summon, array,

The witnesses, judge her and make her
A noise and a shame—
We knew this, and what would he do
If the case were the same

As his father believed was the case
With his mother? would he,
A prophet, fulfill all the law,
Or let her go free?—

This Sarah, you know, that I caught,
Was a witness and saw.
Now what would he do, shade away,
Or judge by the law?

For Moses decreed if a woman
Who is married shall lie
With a man, whether wedded or not,
The woman shall die

With the man in a volley of stones;
And Moses decreed
If a virgin already betrothed
Shall lust in the deed

With a man not the bridegroom, and whether
The man shall be wed,
The people shall stone them with stones
Until they be dead.

Now mark you, how equal the law
Of weight and of span:
One law for the woman in sin,
The same for the man.

If Moses be still the law-giver,
By nothing dethroned,
And this be the law, then this Sarah
Was fit to be stoned.

And if it be true, as he says,
That he came to fulfill
The law, nor destroy it, why then
We thought he would will
The death of this woman we took
In adultery, yes in the act,
So we argued together beforehand
The law and the fact.

Now the case was this way: this Josiah
Late journeyed from Tyre,
Three wives to his household already,
Yet alive with desire,

And free by our custom and law
To add to his hearth
A fourth for the heirs to his house,
And for comfort and mirth,

Came back in the cause of a field
He had bought; as it chanced
Met up with this Sarah, a wife,
They feasted and danced,

Her spouse being absent, what’s more
In Egypt for good.
So Josiah and Sarah were found
In the act in the wood.

We brought her before him, accused,
And told him the case.
He stooped, as it seemed, to conceal
A blush on his face,
And wrote in the sand, as we stood
And pressed him he wrote:
“Anise” and “cummin” and “gnat”
And “Moses” and “mote.”

We cried all the more, he uplifted
Himself, said: “Begin
Your throwing of stones, let the first
Be him without sin.”

So there I was caught, for he knew—
Like wheat from the scythe
We shrank—I was guilty of sin,
I had failed in my tithe

Of anise. But why have clean hands
To work at our smudges?
And how will you ever stop sin
If you ask of the judges

To be without sin ere they punish
A matter of lust?
I call this a ruling where morals
Fall down in the dust.

The most of us left then. He asked her:
“Does no man condemn?
Nor do I.” And so he made one
With me and with them.

So here in a sense was the world
Spiritual, civil,
Prophet and Pharisee, judge
Leagued up with the devil.

For what did it matter to say
To go and no more
Sin as she had, if the sin
Would fare as before?

It followed that Sarah went free,
And Josiah the man.
One standard for both is the rule,
And the modern plan.

What’s that? Why to sin if you wish—
For what is a sin
If no stones are hurled for the lack
Of a man to begin?

And so it all ended. This Sarah
Was given a bill.
She married Josiah, they say,
And lives with him still.

FIRST ENTRANTS

(St. Matthew, Chapter XXII: 31.)

We know the game of lawyer and priest;
We know the cunning of Pharisee, Scribe;
We know the malice of soldier, jailer;—
Hearts of those who abstain, imbibe.

And when we saw a God-mad fool
Like John the Baptist who cursed and grieved
For the hate of the elders, the harlot’s sorrow
We listened to him and we believed.

We know we are wronged, he voiced it for us;
We know we are mocked, he gave us place
With the children of grief, the simple hearted,
The broken spirits deserving grace.

He knew men use us and throw us away.
He knew we give and the gift is loathed.
We are the givers to men who scourge us,
Drive us to darkness, cold, unclothed.

And when he said: “Behold he is there
Whose latchet I am unworthy to loose,”
Jesus took us, the humble hearted,
The broken vessels that none will use.

And we believed again, and saw
A youth who loved us without desire;
Feasting, drinking with us the harlots,
Outcasts, sinners, wrecks of the fire.

These were our brothers: John the Baptist,
Jesus of Nazareth. Brothers I say.
Brothers and sisters bound in the service
Of giving comfort and pity away.

Pity and solace and hope of heaven,
Healing and tenderness came of Christ.
And we, the harlots, have given pity
And given delight to men who enticed

This little gift, so easy to give;
This wonder gift to them, as they said.
That is the passion that moves a woman
Before it becomes a matter of bread.

Before the lashes of scorn and the chains,
The dungeons, before the scowls and sneers;
Before the wrath of the priest, the temple’s
Bolted door for our hunger, tears.

Before the delight we sell is stale
As the steps of a dancer, growing old.
All is delight, kisses and dancing—
Men can buy, for they have the gold.

And we, he says, shall enter heaven
Before the priests and the elders do.
Why do we enter? Because as sorrow,
Poverty, humbleness, we are true.

Without pretense or pride. We are children
Who have shirked the task, but repent the sin.
But they, the elders and priests have promised
To work for heaven and never begin.

Why do we enter, save spite of our craft
To wheedle with lies we all stand forth
Known to the world as painted harlots,
Taken by no one over our worth?

And it’s good to enter, if we can be
With Jesus and John, and given reprieve
From priests and elders who run the city
And hound the harlots who see and believe.

JOHN IN PRISON

(St. Luke, Chapter XVI. St. Matthew, Chapter XI.)

John said to the jailer: “Where are my disciples? Befriend
My grief and my doubt, and entreat them to come, to the end

That they ask him for me if we look for another, or deem,
As I did, that this prophet shall save and fulfill and redeem.”

And the jailer replied: “Since the wrath of King Herod a dish
Your head shall contain by to-morrow, I give you your wish.”

So he brought the disciples to John and the two of them led
To the cell where he sat, and John to the two of them said:—

“At this end of my life and my hopes, at the door of my doom
Go ask him for me and report: is it he that should come,

Or shall we yet look for another?” Amazed were the two
And one of them spoke to the Baptist and said: “Is it true

That you preached in the wilderness saying repent and prepare
The way of the Lord, whose shoes I am worthless to bear;

Who will fan out the chaff, gather wheat, purge the floor
With fire and the Spirit baptize you, bring down and restore

The kingdom of heaven? And are we abused in the word
That as he came out of the waters of Jordan you heard

A voice call from heaven which thundered: ‘This son of my love
With whom I am pleased you shall hear,’ and a dove

For the Spirit descended upon him—and yet can you ask
If he be the one that should come? Yet we take up the
task

And go at your bidding.” And John said: “I suffer without
You seek him and ask, for this is the cause of my doubt:—

I have heard of his works and rejoice. But why does he feast
When I fasted myself? And how have the rumors increased

That he fellows with publicans, sinners and drinkers of wine,
A bibber himself, when the springs of the desert were mine?

And how is the ax, as I said, laid close to the root of the tree,
And my curses fulfilled of the Pharisees, if this must be?

And if, as they say, he is preaching the word that we make
Of the unrighteous mammon a friend for the day when we break

With the lords of the riches of truth, as he put it, for then
The unrighteous mammon shall take us, console us again:—

I have wasted the goods of my lord! I am caught and accused!
Shall I make good the theft from my lord in a trust I abused?

Why, no! I go out to the debtors, my master to foil,
How much do you owe him? Why, so many measures of oil!

Sit down then, I say, make the bill but a half, quickly write:—
I am wiser in this, so he says, than the children of light—

As I make for myself by the trick of a thief, and a theft,
The confederates’ home for my own for my honor bereft.

Go! learn if he said this. Return ere the rise of the sun:—
Shall we look for another to save us, or is he the one?”

ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA

Who is that coming? Look! They are bearing a body again.
It’s a woman now, I think. And the very same young men

Who brought Ananias’ body we buried a moment ago.
Pat down the earth a little, the grass will sooner grow.

Yes, now I see it’s Sapphira. What did she do to win
Death at the hands of Peter, or was it her husband’s sin?

To which she agreed, or kept her husband’s secret in faith.
They sold a sheep, as I hear it, and suffered sudden death

For hiding part of the price, for a thing commendable:
Their boy is sick, and they needed money to get him well.

Just look how things are going: Cæsar the despot rules,
The state is his. For the rest, we are run by a pack of fools;

Zealots and mystics who say that the end of the world is near.
Tyranny around us, on top, under us dullness and fear.

Songs and the wine-cup banished, freedom throttled blue.
It’s the same here being a Greek, Persian, Median, Jew.

Roman sovereignty over us, merciless, cold and bright.
Fogs over the land of dust, day no different than night.

Listless we labor or idle, creep into an early bed.
Sleep is the best thing now, and the best is the sleep of the dead.

Prepare for the end of the world! Build up the church, the throne,
Sell all your goods and give, have nothing to call your own;

Put everything in common. That’s one cry. What remains?
Taxes, soldiers, prisons, edicts, laws and chains.

There never was such a time! What man is lord of his soul?
Someone entered my barn and took my ass with foal

For the prophet to ride on in triumph. I was there and saw him ride,
Crowds crying hallelujah pressing on every side.

They would have all things in common. They kill a man and his wife,
And Cæsar rules as always, and yet they call this life!

Wars forever and ever, manned by hovels and huts;
And what is it all about? lands, and gold and guts;

And baptists stirring the dreamers, and bankers that thrive thereby.
Why kill off Ananias when the whole of life is a lie?

All right, young men, put her down. Go to it now with the spade.
We’ll bury the woman Sapphira here where her husband’s laid.

They’re out of it. Neither Cæsar nor Peter can wake their sleep.
I lost my ass, and they lost their lives for the price of a sheep.

And Cæsar will rule forever! And Peter if he grows strong
Will make a pact with Cæsar, and Israel’s woe and wrong

Will spread all over the earth. It takes no prophet to see
That while there is Gold and Fear man will never be free—

Until the world is fed, and hunger steals like a wraith
With the ghost of Cæsar’s lust, and the mist of Peter’s faith.

THE TWO MALEFACTORS

Ask Matthew, or ask Mark, and get the truth.
I know myself, was there and heard them both—
Both railed at him. No! one did not rebuke
The other for his railing; did not ask
To be remembered when into his Kingdom
Jesus should come. What kingdom? David’s?—pah!
That had gone whirling with the desert’s dust.
What kingdom? That within you? A fool’s kingdom!
“To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise,”
He never said that. I was there. I know.
And if he did, where is that paradise?
Where is he? And where is the man they say
He said this to? Ask Matthew, learn the truth:
Both railed at him. Both died, nerved to the last
By bitter disappointment.

Listen, friend,
These malefactors were my brothers! Well,
I saw them grow up lusty. I beheld
Their course from hope to action, till defeat
And prison took them.

For we are the sons,
We Jews, of those who went to Babylon;
Returned to fall by Alexander’s sword;
Were snatched by Syria, then Egypt came,
Put heels upon our necks. Rome sailed to us,
And took us over. And these bitter years
Made poets, prophets of us, spurred us on
To inflate the dream Jehovah with our breath
Of threats and curses; yet these bitter years
Kept at white heat the hope of David’s throne,
Restored, triumphant, and our prophecies
Were from Jehovah of a king to come
Who would free Israel, drive the oppressor off,
And let us live as men.

Now it may be
A certain Jacob was his grandfather,
As Matthew says; or it may be that Heli
Was his grandfather, as Luke says, but still
Both say he was of David. And Luke says
The angel Gabriel came to Mary, his mother,
And said he shall be great and shall be called
The Son of the Most High, and God shall give him
The throne of his father David. He shall reign
Over the house of Jacob, and his kingdom
Shall have no end. We looked for such a one
To free us and with portents such as stars,
And Gabriel descending, Bethlehem
Become his birth-place, and the prophecies
Of old fulfilled, we looked for Israel freed,
And for a king of Jewish blood to rule us—
No Cæsar any more. For it was prophesied
Of Bethlehem: For out of thee shall come
A governor, a shepherd of my people!
And look, he’s born in Bethlehem! And why not
Our hope re-kindled?

And now look at us;
These centuries bruised, imprisoned and made poor,
Jerusalem a city of wails and woes,
The whole of Israel slaved! And look at him!
How does he start his work, whatever it be?
By reading from Isaiah at Nazareth:—
“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because
He anointed me to preach good tidings to
The poor, hath sent me to proclaim release
To captives and to set at liberty
Them that are bruised.”

What doctrine may this be,
But change, or revolution, and the ferment
Of new wine bursting bottles frail and old,
This tyranny of Cæsar, this dependence
On alien rulership? You know yourself
Barabbas was not single in the crime
Of insurrection, ask the fellow Mark.
He’ll tell you this Barabbas lay in bonds
With many who rose up, committed murder.
Of these were my two brothers, crucified
With Jesus on that day.

Well, so it was
He preached, was followed by the poor, the weak,
The slaved, despoiled until ’twas noised abroad
Through all the hill country and in the cities
That he stirred up the people everywhere,
Devising revolution, overthrow
Of Cæsar’s rule. But there was murmuring too:
For some said he was good, and others said
He deceived the people. For upon a day
When he was asked directly of our tribute,
Whether to pay to Cæsar, not to pay,
He dodged and said: “Give Cæsar his due and God
His due”; but what we wished to know, was what
Was Cæsar’s due, and give it him, and if
No tribute was his due, but rather casting
The yoke of Cæsar, then give Cæsar that.
He did not answer what the Pharisees asked,
That which we wished to hear him answer, though
The Pharisees had asked him. For we poor,
Enslaved and disinherited had followed
His leadership thus far.

Behold the change:
Passing from work unfinished he becomes
The Son of God and God himself, becomes
A mystery, the Word that lived and wrought
Before John who announced him. Tidings preached,
I grant you, to the poor, but who remain
Poor as before, but worn for broken hope
Of words that changed no thing. And no release
To captives, and no liberty to those
Bruised and in chains. And so I say his work
Is left unfinished, nothing done in truth.
And quickly, like a sun-rise on the hills,
He flashes forth his God-head, and we’re left
To Cæsar’s will, and end up with the words:—
His kingdom is of heaven, not of earth;
Refines the point: this kingdom is within us.
And he will die and rise again from death,
Ascend to heaven, and return again
Before this generation passes to take up
His own to heaven, and will rule forever
In heaven, not in Israel. For the world
Is to be burnt, with all its disbelievers.
And when it’s burnt, sitting at God’s right hand
He’ll rule forever with his own! You see
What we expected vanished in such words,
Such madness, idle dreams.

But, as I said,
His lineage was David’s; Matthew, Mark
Will tell you so. But David said of Christ,
Calling him Lord; sit thou on my right hand
Till I make enemies of thine thy foot-stool.
“How is Christ son of David, being his Lord?”
Asked Jesus of the Pharisees, closed their mouths
With asking that. The common people heard
Him gladly when he said this—true enough!
But I, my brothers, did not hear him gladly.
For if he were the son of God, yet equal
In being and in time with God, why not
The son and lord of David? Both perplex
The spirit of man; one mystery is as dark
As another mystery, and if one be so, then
Another may be also. Pass the point....

They crucified my brothers with him! Both
Railed on him for deliverance from the cross.
If he were God, he could have plucked the nails
And let them down, escape. And listen now:
My brothers kept their faith in him to the last,
And since they were condemned and had to pay
For insurrection on the cross, chose out
His day of crucifixion for their own;
Believed that he would save them, and so make
This choosing of his time of penalty
An hour of luck. And so I tell you truth:
Though both were railing it was rather pain
Than lack of hope that made them rail at him.
Nor was it mockery that made them rail.
They hoped to stir him by their words, evoke
His greatest strength to help them that they railed.
They even smiled a little when the nails
Were driven through their hands, as if to say:
“You cannot harm us when this god is here;
Go, do your butcher business, for at last
He’ll save himself and us.” And just as men
Refuse to think death near, and still believe
They will escape it somehow, when no aid,
But human hands is near, my brothers thought
This god would surely save them. So they talked,
Hunched up their legs and shoulders to ease up
The strain of hanging on the nails, and waited,
Joked with the lookers on, and smiled and begged,
And sweated agony and railed at last.
But when the voices in the crowd called out:
“If you trust God, let God deliver you,
If you are God’s son, let Him save you now;
Save thou thyself!” my older brother said:
“If I were off this cross I’d break your heads,
You crooked priests, you whited sepulchers,
You carrion Scribes and Pharisees.”

And such noise
As they cast lots to get his garments, shouts
When they were won and parted! In a silence
He asked his Father to forgive them, saying
They knew not what they did. My brother bawled:
“They know what they are doing, they have killed
The prophets in all ages! Don’t say that!
Don’t end up soft, you cursed them hitherto,
These are the vipers that you cursed before;
These are the vultures that you said you’d shut
The gates of heaven against; these are the wolves
That thirst for blood and lap it, unrepentant
Blasphemers against you and the Holy Ghost;
Committers of unpardonable sins, the band
You drove with knotted cords from out the temple.
And what is usury or selling doves
To killing you? Why ask your Father this?
Why now this softness? Change of mood, why prayers
Instead of curses? If you’re dying, sire,
Be what you were when you were flush with life,
And curse them into hell. Hold to your strength,
And curse them into hell.” And so it went
With talking back and forth, mixed in with groans,
And curses, railings, while my brothers twisted
Their bodies, and hunched up their thighs and backs
To ease the strain of hanging on the nails,
And dribbled at the mouth, and babbled things
And laughed like devils in a soul possessed.

But when he thirsted and they took a sponge
And gave him vinegar, and he sucked it in,
They looked at him with eyes that bulged with fear:—
They saw him drooping, fainting, losing strength,
They struggled then and shouted: “Keep on breathing!
Breathe deep! Call on your Father! Don’t give up!
Fight for your life, your god-head and ourselves!
We’re here because you came and preached, and stirred
The people! Don’t desert us now! Great Lord,
Messiah, Son of God, are we first martyrs
To what you failed to do? We cannot die,
You must not die. Let David’s throne be lost
As lost it is, but not our lives! Great Lord!”
Thus as they chattered, chattered, bawled and shouted
Jesus threw back his head and cried so loud
That all the valleys echoed it: “My God,
My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And then
His head dropped on his chest—and he was dead....

They looked at him—my brothers looked at him,
And whimpered—they were beaten, but fought on.
Tears stained with blood went coursing down their cheeks.
And then the soldiers came to break their legs.
And one had fainted, but the other one
Was fighting still and said: “Have mercy friend,
Cæsar would save me, what does Cæsar care
For one poor rebel?”

Then they broke their legs,
And all were dead. So ended up another
Chapter in this poor world’s hopeless hope.

About This Book

THE FIG TREE

(Matthew, Chapter XXI.)

TRIBUTE MONEY

(Matthew, Chapter XXII: 24-27.)

THE GREAT MERGER

(Exodus, Chapter XX.)

AT DECAPOLIS

(Mark, Chapter V.)

1
THE ACCUSATION

2
JESUS BEFORE MAGISTRATE AHAZ

THE SINGLE STANDARD

(St. John, Chapter VIII.)

FIRST ENTRANTS

(St. Matthew, Chapter XXII: 31.)

JOHN IN PRISON

(St. Luke, Chapter XVI. St. Matthew, Chapter XI.)

ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA

THE TWO MALEFACTORS

BERENICE

The open sea

About This Book

1 THE ACCUSATION

2 JESUS BEFORE MAGISTRATE AHAZ

1
THE ACCUSATION

2
JESUS BEFORE MAGISTRATE AHAZ