Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By NathanielHawthorne317 The Star of Calvary
I
The all-mysterious light,
That like a watcher, gazing on
The changes of the night,
Toward the hill of Bethlehem took
Its solitary flight.
Its sameness startleth me,
Although the disk is red as blood,
And downward silently
It looketh on another hill,—
The hill of Calvary!
The heavy sun doth glow;
And, like a ship, the lazy mist
Is sailing on below,—
Between the broad sun and the earth
It tacketh to and fro.
The bat’s unholy wing
Threads through the noiseless olive trees,
Like some unquiet thing
Which playeth in the darkness, when
The leaves are whispering.
All sorrowfully still,
That mournful tread, it rends the heart
With an unwelcome thrill,—
The mournful tread of them that crowd
Thy melancholy hill!
’T is even three I count,
Like columns on the mossy marge
Of some old Grecian fount,—
So pale they stand, so drearily,
On that mysterious Mount.
It is no human One
That ye have dared to crucify.
What evil hath he done?
It is your King, O Israel!
The God-begotten Son!
Why have ye crowned him so?
That brow is bathed in agony,—
’T is veiled in every woe:
Ye saw not the immortal trace
Of Deity below.
Resignedly they fall,
Those deathlike drooping features,
Unbending, blighted all:
The Man of Sorrows,—how he bears
The agonizing thrall!
His gaze!—how strange to brook;
But that there ’s mercy blended deep
In each reproachful look,
’T would search thee, till the very heart
Its withered home forsook.
The cry, as if it grew,
By those cold lips unuttered, yet
All heartfelt rising through,—
“Father in heaven! forgive them, for
They know not what they do!”