_Ador._ Yea, below. Track the gazing of mine eyes, Naming God within thine heart That its weakness may depart And the vision rise! Seest thou yet, beloved? _Zerah._ I see Beyond the city, crosses three And mortals three that hang thereon 'Ghast and silent to the sun. Round them blacken and welter and press Staring multitudes whose father Adam was, whose brows are dark With his Cain's corroded mark,-- Who curse with looks. Nay--let me rather Turn unto the wilderness! _Ador._ Turn not! God dwells with men. _Zerah._ Above He dwells with angels, and they love. Can these love? With the living's pride They stare at those who die, who hang In their sight and die. They bear the streak Of the crosses' shadow, black not wide, To fall on their heads, as it swerves aside When the victims' pang Makes the dry wood creak. _Ador._ The cross--the cross! _Zerah._ A woman kneels The mid cross under, With white lips asunder, And motion on each. They throb, as she feels, With a spasm, not a speech; And her lids, close as sleep, Are less calm, for the eyes Have made room there to weep Drop on drop-- _Ador._ Weep? Weep blood, All women, all men! He sweated it, He, For your pale womanhood And base manhood. Agree That these water-tears, then, Are vain, mocking like laughter: Weep blood! Shall the flood Of salt curses, whose foam is the darkness, on roll Forward, on from the strand of the storm-beaten years, And back from the rocks of the horrid hereafter, And up, in a coil, from the present's wrath-spring, Yea, down from the windows of heaven opening, Deep calling to deep as they meet on His soul-- And men weep only tears? _Zerah._ Little drops in the lapse! And yet, Ador, perhaps It is all that they can. Tears! the lovingest man Has no better bestowed Upon man. _Ador._ Nor on God. _Zerah._ Do all-givers need gifts? If the Giver said "Give," the first motion would slay Our Immortals, the echo would ruin away The same worlds which he made. Why, what angel uplifts Such a music, so clear, It may seem in God's ear Worth more than a woman's hoarse weeping? And thus, Pity tender as tears, I above thee would speak, Thou woman that weepest! weep unscorned of us! I, the tearless and pure, am but loving and weak.