When across his path an awful form In luminous glory stood; His thorn-crowned brow, His hands and feet, Were wet with immortal blood. The godlike sorrow which filled His eyes Seemed changed to a godlike wrath As they turned on Peter, who cried aloud, And sank to his knees in the path. "Lord of my life, my love, my soul! Say, what wilt Thou with me?" A voice replied, "I go to Rome To be crucified for thee." The Apostle sprang, all flushed, to his feet,-- The vision had passed away; The light still lay on the dewy plain, But the sky in the east was gray. To the city walls St. Peter turned, And his heart in his breast grew fire; In every vein the hot blood burned With the strength of one high desire. And sturdily back he marched to his death Of terrible pain and shame; And never a shade of fear again To the stout Apostle came. ISRAEL. When by Jabbok the patriarch waited To learn on the morrow his doom, And his dubious spirit debated In darkness and silence and gloom, There descended a Being with whom He wrestled in agony sore, With striving of heart and of brawn, And not for an instant forbore Till the east gave a threat of the dawn; And then, as the Awful One blessed him, To his lips and his spirit there came, Compelled by the doubts that oppressed him, The cry that through questioning ages Has been wrung from the hinds and the sages, "Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!" Most fatal, most futile, of questions! Wherever the heart of man beats, In the spirit's most sacred retreats, It comes with its sombre suggestions, Unanswered for ever and aye. The blessing may come and may stay, For the wrestlers heroic endeavour; But the question, unheeded for ever, Dies out in the broadening day. In the ages before our traditions, By the altars of dark superstitions, The imperious question has come; When the death-stricken victim lay sobbing At the feet of his slayer and priest, And his heart was laid smoking and throbbing To the sound of the cymbal and drum On the steps of the high Teocallis; When the delicate Greek at his feast Poured forth the red wine from his chalice With mocking and cynical prayer; When by Nile Egypt worshipping lay, And afar, through the rosy, flushed air The Memnon called out to the day; Where the Muezzin's cry floats from his spire; In the vaulted Cathedral's dim shades, Where the crushed hearts of thousands aspire Through arts highest miracles higher, This question of questions invades Each heart bowed in worship or shame; In the air where the censers are swinging, A voice, going up with the singing, Cries, "Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!"