THE FIRST CHRISTIAN

A little wandering wind went up the hill.

It had a lonely voice as though it knew

What it should find before it came to where

The broken body of him that had been Christ

Hung in the ruddy glow. A bowshot down

The bleak rock-shouldered hill the soldiery

Had piled a fire, and when the searching wind

Came stronger from the distant sea and dashed

The shadows and the gleam together, songs

Of battle and lust were blown along the slope

Mingled with clash of swords on cuisse and shield.

But of the women sitting by the cross

Even she whose life had been as gravely sweet

And sheltered as a lily's did not flinch.

Her face was buried in her shrouding cloak.

And she who knew too sorrowfully well

The cruelty and bitterness of life

Heard not. She sat erect, her shadowy hair

Blown back along the darkness and her eyes

That searched the distant spaces of the night

Splendid and glowing with an inward joy.

And at the darkest hour came three or four

From round the fire and would have driven them thence;

But one who knew them, gazing in their eyes,

Said: “Nay. It is his mother and his love,

The scarlet Magdalena. Let them be.”

So, in the gloom beside that glimmering cross,

Beneath the broken body of him they loved,

They wept and watched — the lily and the rose.

At last the deep, low voice of Magdalen,

Toned like a distant bell, broke on the hush:

“We are so weak! What can poor women do?

So pitifully frail! God pity us!

How he did pity us! He understood...

Out of his own great strength he understood

How it might feel to be so very weak...

To be a tender lily of the field,

To be a lamb lost in the windy hills

Far from the fold and from the shepherd's voice,

To be a child with no strength, only love.

And ah, he knew, if ever a man can know,

What‘ t is to be a woman and to live,

Strive how she may to out-soar and overcome,

Tied to this too frail body of too fair earth!

“Oh, had I been a man to shield him then

In his great need with loving strong right arm!

One of the twelve — ha!— of that noble twelve

That ran away, and two made mock of him

Or else betrayed him ere they ran? Ah no!

And yet, a man's strength with a woman's love...

That might have served him somewhat ere the end.”

Then with a weary voice the mother said:

“What can we do but only watch and weep,

Sit with weak hands and watch while strong men rend

And break and ruin, bringing all to nought

The beauty we have nearly died to make?

“It is not true to say that he was strong.

He did not claim the kingdom that was his,

He did not even seek for wealth and power,

He did not win a woman's love and get

Strong children to live after him, and all

That strong men strive for he passed heedless by.

Because that he was weak I loved him so...

For that and for his soft and gentle ways,

The tender patient calling of his voice

And that dear trick of smiling with his eyes.

Ah no! I have had dreams — a mother's dreams —

But now I cannot dream them any more.

“I sorrowed little as the happy days

Sped by and by that still the fair-haired lad

Who lay at first beside me in the stall,

The cattle stall outside Jerusalem,

Found no great throne to dazzle his mother's eye.

He was so good a workman... axe and saw

Did surely suit him better than a sword.

I was content if only he would wed

Some village girl of little Nazareth

And get me children with his own slow smile,

Deep thoughtful eyes and golden kingly brow.

“It seems but yesterday he played among

The shavings strewn on Joseph's work-shop floor.

The sunlight of the morning slanted through

The window —‘ t was in springtime — and across

The bench where Joseph sat, and then it lay

In golden glory on the boy's bright hair

And on the shavings that were golden too.

I saw him through the open door. I thought,

‘ My little king has found his golden crown.’

But unto Joseph I said nought at all.

“But now, ah me! he won no woman's love,

Nor loved one either as most men call love,

And so he had no child and he is gone

And I am left without him and alone.”

So by her son's pale broken body mourned

The mother, dreaming on departed days.

And as with one who looks into the west,

Watching the embers of the outburned day

Crumble and cool and slowly droop and fade,

And will not take the darkling eastward path

Where lies his way until the last faint glow

Has left the sky and the early stars shine forth,

So did her dream cling to the ruined past

And all the joy they had in Nazareth

Before the years of doubt and trouble came.

Then, while loud laughter sounded up the hill

Where yet that ribald crew sang o'er the wine,

She bowed her head above her cradling arms

And softly sang, as to herself, the songs

Of Israel that once had served her well

To soothe the wakeful child.

But Magdalen

Arose upon her feet and tossed her cloak

Back from the midnight of her wind-blown hair

And lifted up her eyes into the dark

As though, beyond this circle of all our woe,

To read a hidden meaning in the stars.

“Aye, it is dark,” she said. “The night comes on.

He was the sunshine of our little day.

The clouds unsettled softly and we saw

Ladders of glory climbing into light

Unspeakable, with dazzling interchange

Of Majesties and Powers. But suddenly

The tides of darkness whelm us round again

And this drear dwindled earth becomes once more

What it has ever been — a core of shade

And steaming vapor spinning in the dark,

A deeper clot of blackness in the void!

“The night comes on.‘ T is hard to pierce the dark.

And if to me who loved him, whom he loved —

Though well thou sayest,‘ Not as most men call love’ —

Far harder will it be for those who hold

In memory no gesture of his hand,

No haunting echo of his patient voice,

Nor that dear trick of smiling with his eyes.

“O ceaseless tramp of armies down the years!

O maddened cries of‘ Christ’ and‘ Son of Mary!’

While o'er the crying screams the hurtling death....

Thou gentle shepherd of the quiet fold,

Mild man of sorrows, hast thou done this thing,

Who camest not to bring peace but a sword?

Ah no, not thou, but only our childishness,

The pitifully childish heart of man

That cannot learn and know beyond a little.

“The priests and captains and the little kings

Will tear each other at the throat and cry:

‘ Thus said he, lived he; swear it or thou diest!’

But these shall pass and perish in the dark

While the lorn strays and outcasts of the world,

The souls whose pain has seared their pride to dust

And burned a way for love to enter in —

These only know his meaning and shall live.

“So is it as with one whose feet have trod

The valley of the shadow, who has seen

His dearest lowered into endless night.

All music holds for him a deeper strain

Of nobler meaning, and the flush of dawn,

High wind at noonday, crumbling sunset gold,

And the dear pathetic look of children's eyes —

All beauty pierces closer to his heart.

“Yea, thou thyself, pale youth upon the cross —

The godlike strength of thee was rooted deep

In human weakness. Even she who bore thee,

Seeing the man too nearly, missed the God,

Erring as fits the mother. Some will say

In coming years, I feel it in my heart,

That thou didst face thy death a conscious God,

Knowing almighty hands were stretched to snatch

And lift thee from the greedy clutching grave.

Falsely! Forgetting dark Gethsemane,—

Not knowing, as I know, what doubt assailed

Thy human heart until the latest breath.

Ah, what a trumpery death, what mockery

And mere theatric mimicry of pain,

If thou didst surely know thou couldst not die!

Thou didst not know. And whether even now

Thy straying ghost, like some great moth of night

Blown seaward through the shadow, flies and drifts

Along dim coasts and headlands of the dark,

A homeless wanderer up and down the void,

Or whether indeed thou art enthroned above

In light and life, I know not. This I know —

That in the moment of sheer certainty

My soul will die.

“No! On thy spirit lay

All the dark weight and mystery of pain

And all our human doubt and flickering hope,

Deathless despairs and treasuries of tears,

Gropings of spirit blindfold by the flesh

And grapplings with the fiend. Else were thy death

Less like a God's than even mine may be.

“Thou broken mother who canst see in him

Only the quiet man, the needful child,

And most of all the Babe of Bethlehem,

Let it suffice thee. Thy reward is great.

Who loveth God that never hath loved man?

Who knoweth man but cometh to know God?

Thou sacred, sorrowing mother, canst thou learn —

Thou who hast gone so softly in God's sight —

Of me, the scarlet woman of old days?

Come, let us talk together, thou and I.

Apart, we see him darkly, through a glass;

Together, we shall surely see aright.

Bring thou thine innocence, thy stainless soul,

And I will bring deep lore of suffering,

My dear-bought wisdom of defeat and pain.

For out of these may come, believe it thou,

Sanctities not like thine, but fit to bear

The bitter storms and whirlwinds of this world.

Aye, out of evil often springeth good,

And sweetest honey from the lion's mouth.

And that he knew. That very thing he meant

When he withdrew me from the pits of shame.

‘ T is I who see God shining through the man.

I see the deity, the godlike strength

In his supreme capacity for pain.

Nor have I known the cruel love of men

These many years to err when now I say

This man loved not like men but like a God.

Thou broken mother, weep not for the child,

Mourn not the man. Acclaim the risen Christ!”

She turned and touched the other lovingly,

Then stooped and peered into her darkened face.

The mother slept, forspent and overborne

By weariness and woe too great to bear.

She gently smiled. “So it is best,” she said.

Tall and elate she stood, her shadowy hair

Blown back along the darkness and her eyes

That searched the distant spaces of the night

Splendid and glowing with an inward joy.

And over that dark hill of tragedy

And triumph, victory and dull despair,

Over the sleeping Roman soldiery,

Over the three stark crosses and the two

Who loved Him most, the lily and the rose,

Shone still and clear the great compassionate stars.