THE SECOND CRUCIFIXION
by: Richard Le Gallienne
(1866-1947)
- OUD mockers
in the roaring street
- Say Christ is crucified again:
- Twice pierced His gospel-bearing feet,
- Twice broken His great heart in vain.
-
- I hear, and to myself I smile,
- For Christ talks with me all the while.
-
- No angel now to roll the stone
- From off His unawaking sleep,
- In vain shall Mary watch alone,
- In vain the soldiers vigil keep.
-
- Yet while they deem my Lord is dead
- My eyes are on His shining head.
-
- Ah! never more shall Mary hear
- That voice exceeding sweet and low
- Within the garden calling clear:
- Her Lord is gone, and she must go.
-
- Yet all the while my Lord I meet
- In every London lane and street.
-
- Poor Lazarus shall wait in vain,
- And Bartimaeus still go blind;
- The healing hem shall neer again
- Be touched by suffering humankind.
-
- Yet all the while I see them rest,
- The poor and outcast, in His breast.
-
- No more unto the stubborn heart
- With gentle knocking shall He plead,
- No more the mystic pity start,
- For Christ twice dead is dead indeed.
-
- So in the street I hear men say,
- Yet Christ is with me all the day.
"The Second Crucifixion"
is reprinted from The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse.
Ed. Nicholson & Lee. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1917. |
MORE POEMS BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE |
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