From Calvary’s Mount descends the winding train; Glitter the Roman eagles in the sun, Leading the soldiers and the people on To tread the city’s dolorous streets again, Whose blood-tracked stones would cry, had they but breath, “Woe! woe! Jerusalem, for this day’s deed of wrath.” Almost unheeding passes on the crowd, Save, here and there, turned from the populace, Rests look of doubting or malignant face On That we see not in death’s anguish bowed. Wild cries of hate mount up and break the still And ominous glare that broodeth dumbly o’er the hill. Our sad hearts hear the very footsteps fall, The horse-hoofs striking hard against the stones, And distant echoes of heart-broken moans— Jerusalem’s daughters mourning so the thrall Of Him, their fairest one, to death betrayed, The hands that blessed their little ones so sore arrayed. Where is the dying King the cross uplifts? We cannot see him, and our upraised eyes Meet but the awful gloom in far-off skies, The lurid moon dull gazing through the rifts Of gathering darkness; here the waiting glare Of cruel sunshine making all the city fair. Fain would we kneel with Magdalen and weep, Clasp wounded feet in passionate embrace, Win with the loved disciple word of grace, Vigil with God’s woe-stricken Mother keep: We cannot find Him, and blaspheming cries From that retreating train still in fierce chorus rise. Is He not here? Lo! sadly looking down, Just at our feet a shadow strange we trace Falling across the sunlit grassy place— The likeness of three crosses darkly thrown, And His, the centre one, e’en so most fair Through semblance of a form divine it dim doth bear. Here, ’gainst the sunshine traced, lie those bent knees That knew the sorrow of Gethsemani As trembled they ’neath its dread mystery; Here droops the thorn-crowned head in silent peace, And here, in the unswerving shadow lined, Are stretched the arms that bear the ransom of mankind. So rests unseen the presence of the Lord Whose shadow seems as blessèd aureole, A holy writing on a sacred scroll, Rich oil from consecrated vessel poured— All merit his, the Infinite Son of God, Whose death so lightly falls on earth’s poor, soulless sod. Within the painted shadow is no life, Save in the grassy sward whereon it falls. Beyond arise the city’s firm-built walls. With spring’s swift-coursing sap the boughs are rife Of the gnarled olives with their silver leaves Shining against the dusky veil the storm-wind weaves.