"She heard it, the victorious West, In crown and sword array'd! She felt the void which mined her breast, She shiver'd and obey'd. "She veil'd her eagles, snapp'd her sword, And laid her sceptre down; Her stately purple she abhorr'd, And her imperial crown. "She broke her flutes, she stopp'd her sports, Her artists could not please; She tore her books, she shut her courts, She fled her palaces; "Lust of the eye and pride of life She left it all behind, And hurried, torn with inward strife, The wilderness to find. "Tears wash'd the trouble from her face! She changed into a child! 'Mid weeds and wrecks she stood--a place Of ruin--but she smiled! "Oh, had I lived in that great day, How had its glory new Fill'd earth and heaven, and caught away My ravish'd spirit too! "No thoughts that to the world belong Had stood against the wave Of love which set so deep and strong From Christ's then open grave. "No cloister-floor of humid stone Had been too cold for me. For me no Eastern desert lone Had been too far to flee. "No lonely life had pass'd too slow, When I could hourly scan Upon his Cross, with head sunk low, That nail'd, thorn-crowned Man! "Could see the Mother with her Child Whose tender winning arts Have to his little arms beguiled So many wounded hearts! "And centuries came and ran their course, And unspent all that time Still, still went forth that Child's dear force, And still was at its prime. "Ay, ages long endured his span Of life--'tis true received-- That gracious Child, that thorn-crown'd Man! --He lived while we believed. "While we believed, on earth he went, And open stood his grave. Men call'd from chamber, church, and tent; And Christ was by to save. "Now he is dead! Far hence he lies In the lorn Syrian town; And on his grave, with shining eyes, The Syrian stars look down. "In vain men still, with hoping new, Regard his death-place dumb, And say the stone is not yet to, And wait for words to come. "Ah, o'er that silent sacred land, Of sun, and arid stone, And crumbling wall, and sultry sand, Sounds now one word alone! "_Unduped of fancy, henceforth man Must labour!--must resign His all too human creeds, and scan Simply the way divine!_ "But slow that tide of common thought, Which bathed our life, retired; Slow, slow the old world wore to nought, And pulse by pulse expired.