GOOD FRIDAY NIGHT

At last the bird that sang so long

In twilight circles, hushed his song:

Above the ancient square

The stars came here and there.

Good Friday night! Some hearts were bowed,

But some amid the waiting crowd

Because of too much youth

Felt not that mystic ruth;

And of these hearts my heart was one:

Nor when beneath the arch of stone

With dirge and candle flame

The cross of passion came,

Did my glad spirit feel reproof,

Though on the awful tree aloof,

Unspiritual, dead,

Drooped the ensanguined Head.

To one who stood where myrtles made

A little space of deeper shade

( As I could half descry,

A stranger, even as I ),

I said, “These youths who bear along

The symbols of their Saviour's wrong,

The spear, the garment torn,

The flaggel, and the thorn,—

“Why do they make this mummery?

Would not a brave man gladly die

For a much smaller thing

Than to be Christ and king?”

He answered nothing, and I turned.

Throned in its hundred candles burned

The jeweled eidolon

Of her who bore the Son.

The crowd was prostrate; still, I felt

No shame until the stranger knelt;

Then not to kneel, almost

Seemed like a vulgar boast.

I knelt. The doll-face, waxen white,

Flowered out a living dimness; bright

Dawned the dear mortal grace

Of my own mother's face.

When we were risen up, the street

Was vacant; all the air hung sweet

With lemon-flowers; and soon

The sky would hold the moon.

More silently than new-found friends

To whom much silence makes amends

For the much babble vain

While yet their lives were twain,

We walked along the odorous hill.

The light was little yet; his will

I could not see to trace

Upon his form or face.

So when aloft the gold moon broke,

I cried, heart-stung. As one who woke

He turned unto my cries

The anguish of his eyes.

“Friend! Master!” I cried falteringly,

“Thou seest the thing they make of thee.

Oh, by the light divine

My mother shares with thine,

“I beg that I may lay my head

Upon thy shoulder and be fed

With thoughts of brotherhood!”

So through the odorous wood,

More silently than friends new-found

We walked. At the first meadow bound

His figure ashen-stoled

Sank in the moon's broad gold.