WHERE are ye haling me? Your eyes are bloodshot,And foam is on your lips. Into my face.Ye spit, and with your staves ye strike my head.—O Christian people, Christ’s confessors ye.And the priests fan your fury yet the more,And from his chair the bishop yonder nodsAssent unto your frenzy. O ye servants,By whom the Lord’s name is betrayed. I see,As Stephen did, first witness to the blood,Of old, the heavens opened in their glory.And Christ I see at the right hand of the Father,And I see too how He enjoins His angelsTo keep their flaming swords within their sheathsAnd to cherish compassion with your blindness,—But in His garb He hides His countenanceThat angels and saints may not behold how painTrickles forth from His eyes. Strike ye, strike ye.Spare not your spittle. For your every blowHe, Christ, will soothingly caress my faceAnd change your spittle into glory’s sheenAnd give kind words in place of your affronts,—Then spit and rail upon me, curse and strike me;I shall not hold my peace, the while I haveSpirit in body, tongue in mouth. Shed yeMy blood, and this my blood shall cry to youE’en what my lips did clamour in your ears:Ye are accursed, ye are the sons of hell;Christ, Who entered the world with love, did yeImprison in the dungeons of your souls,And daily do ye scourge Him with your pride,And with your greed ye fashion gyves for Him, And with your lust ye spit into His eyes;Your gluttony doth make a mock of HimAnd with the hardness of your hearts ye stoneMy Saviour’s radiant brow. Day after dayYour lack of loving-kindness chaffers for Him,And every prompting which doth stir your soulsPierces into His limbs with barbed nails,—Ye are accursed, offspring of Belial.And ye, the leaders of this savage herd,Ye evil shepherds, ye who are its priests,Ye fatted gluttons, in whose fleshy facesReflected gleams from hell already show,——Threaten and curse me, hound me, buffet me,—I yet can laugh. I see domains of hellAnd ravenous flames which are agog for you.And ranks of demons sitting there exaltThis work of yours achieved for their domains.And hell shall be all paved with skulls of priests,Their eyes shall be uprooted from their sockets,That they may shine like lanterns there, uponThe sufferings of the damned. Your unclean handsShall be hacked off, and the devil stoking thereShall ‘neath red cauldrons rake the flames with them,—Then strike ye . . . strike. . . . A stone . . . a second stone. . . .O Jesus Christ, thanks to Thee for this favour. . . .That Thou dost let me die . . . as Thou didst Stephen . . .Amid a shower of stones . . . that Thou wilt show me. . .Thy glory . . . where shall enter in . . . my soul. . . .And hell . . . which shall devour my murderers . . .And murderers of Thee . . . Lord Jesus . . . Christ. . . .The Poison from Judaea (1906)
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1942, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 82 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1970, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 54 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
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