| |
| IN garments dyed with blood, thorn-crowned, alone, | |
| A wistful figure on the battlefield | |
| Is by frore moonlight through the dusk revealed. | |
| The mutterings of crass voices ’round him groan. | |
| “Hearing he has not heard; | 5 |
| A god, he has not stirred | |
| To stay this shamefulness of war,” men say. | |
| Spear-pierced by scorn he passes on his way. | |
| |
| Dark is earth’s skyline, scarlet-dark; and he | |
| Is pale as wind-blown ashes. His scarred face | 10 |
| Droops to the slain boys in that slaughter-place; | |
| His wounded hands touch all wounds tenderly. | |
| Yet when he lifts his eyes | |
| The love-light in them dies; | |
| For fury he has fury and for those | 15 |
| Who show no mercy he no mercy knows. | |
| |
| He tramples out the wine-press of his wrath; | |
| He puts the mighty down from their high seat; | |
| Time-rotted tyrannies topple at his feet; | |
| Gaunt discrowned spectres flit before his path. | 20 |
| Their doom was in his word | |
| When first Judea heard | |
| Of brotherhood. Kings scuttle at his nod, | |
| Blown down black battles by the breath of God. | |
| |
| The night brims up with hate and misery; | 25 |
| As from the ground, at each thin blart of fire, | |
| Gleam dead phosphoric eyes in deathless ire. | |
| The hosts snatch freedom from their butchery. | |
| Dead—no lords they fear. | |
| Dead—their blue lips jeer. | 30 |
| Their cross, and his, drives on the smash of things. | |
| The Carpenter builds scaffolds for the Kings. | |
| |
