THE
THREE PILGRIMS
In days,
when the fruit of men’s labour was sparing,
And hearts were weary and nigh
to break,
A sweet grave man with a beautiful bearing
Came to us once in the fields
and spake.
He told us
of Roma, the marvellous city,
5
And of One that came from the
living God,
The Virgin’s Son, who in heavenly pity,
Bore for his people the rood
and rod,
And how at
Roma the gods were broken,
The new was strong, and the
old nigh dead,
10
And love was more than a bare word spoken,
For the sick were healed and
the poor were fed;
And we sat
mute at his feet, and hearkened:
The grave men came in an hour
and went,
But a new light shone on a land long darkened;
15
The toil was weary, the fruit
was spent:
So we came
south, till we saw the city,
Speeding three of us, hand in
hand,
Seeking peace and the bread of pity,
Journeying out of the Umbrian
land;
20
Till we saw
from the hills in a dazzled coma
Over the vines that the wind
made shiver,
Tower on tower, the great city Roma,
Palace and temple, and winding
river:
And we stood
long in a dream and waited,
25
Watching and praying and purified,
And came at last to the walls belated,
Entering in at the eventide:
And many
met us with song and dancing,
Mantled in skins and crowned
with flowers,
30
Waving goblets and torches glancing,
Faces drunken, and grinned in
ours:
And one,
that ran in the midst, came near us—
"Crown yourselves for the
feast," he said,
But we cried out, that the God might hear us,
35
"Where is Jesus, the living
bread?"
And they
took us each by the hand with laughter;
Their eyes were haggard and red with wine:
They haled us on, and we followed after,
"We will show you the new
God’s shrine."
40
Ah, woe to
out tongues, that, forever, unsleeping,
Harp and uncover the old hot
care,
The soothing ash from the embers sweeping,
Wherever the soles of our sad
feet fare.
Ah, we were
simple of mind, now knowing,
45
How dreadful the heart of a
man might be;
But the knowledge of evil is mighty of growing;
Only the deaf and the blind
are free.
We came to
a garden of beauty and pleasure—
It was not the way that our
own feet choose—
50
Where a revel was whirling in many a measure,
And the myriad roar of a great
crowd rose;
And the midmost
round of the garden was reddened
With pillars of fire in a great
high ring—
One look—and our souls forever were deadened,
55
Though our feet yet move, and
our dreams yet sting;
For we saw
that each was a live man flaming,
Limbs that a human mother bore,
And a thing of horror was done, past naming,
And the crowd spun round, and
we saw no more.
60
And he that
ran in the midst, descrying,
Lifted his hand with a foul
red sneer,
And smote us each and the other, crying,
"Thus we worship the new
God here.
"The
Cæsar comes, and the peoples pæans
65
Hail his name for the new made
light,
Pitch and the flesh of the Galileans,
Torches fit for a Roman night;"
And we fell
down to the earth, and sickened,
Moaning, three of us, head by
head,
70
"Where is He, whom the good God quickened?
Where is Jesus, the living bread?
Yet ever
we heard, in the foul mirth turning,
Man and woman and child go by,
And ever the yells of the charred men burning,
75
Piercing heavenward, cry on
cry:
And we lay
there, till the frightful revel,
Died in the dawn with a few
short moans,
Of some that knelt in the wan and level
Shadows, that fell from the
blackened bones.
80
Numb with
horror and sick with pity,
The heart of each as an iron
weight,
We crept in the dawn from the awful city,
Journeying out of the seaward
gate.
The great
sun came from the sea before us;
85
A soft wind blew from the scented
south;
But our eyes knew not of the steps that bore us
Down to the ships at the Timber’s
mouth;
And we prayed
then, as we turned our faces
Over the sea to the living God,
90
That our ways might be in the fierce bare places,
Where never the foot of a live
man trod:
And we set
sail in the noon, not caring
Whether the prow of the dark
ship came,
No more over the old ways faring;
95
For the sea was cold, but the
land was flame:
And the keen
ship sped, and a deadly coma
Blotted away from our eyes forever,
Tower on tower, the great city Roma,
Palace and temple and yellow
river.
100
|
