Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79. | | | | Syria: Calvary, the Mount | | Calvary | | Giles Fletcher (1586?–1623) |
| | (From Christ’s Triumph over Death)
SEE where the Author of all life is dying: | |
| O fearful day! he dead, what hope of living? | |
| See where the hopes of all our lives are buying. | |
| O cheerful day! they bought, what fear of grieving? | |
| Love, love for hate, and death for life is giving: | 5 |
| Lo, how his arms are stretched abroad to grace thee, | |
| And, as they open stand, call to embrace thee: | |
| Why stay’st thou then, my soul! O, fly, fly, thither haste thee. | |
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| His radious head with shameful thorns they tear, | |
| His tender back with bloody whips they rent, | 10 |
| His side and heart they furrow with a spear, | |
| His hands and feet with riving nails they tent, | |
| And, as to disentrail his soul they meant, | |
| They jolly at his grief, and make their game, | |
| His naked body to expose to shame, | 15 |
| That all might come to see, and all might see that came. | |
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| Whereat the Heaven put out his guilty eye | |
| That durst behold so execrable sight, | |
| And sabled all in black the shady sky, | |
| And the pale stars, struck with unwonted fright, | 20 |
| Quenched their everlasting lamps in night: | |
| And at his birth, as all the stars Heaven had | |
| Were not enow, but a new star was made; | |
| So now, both new, and old, and all away did fade. | | | | |
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