Page:Dreams and Images.djvu/150

A sick lamb refuged in His tender arms.
He gently stroked the lamb and then the pain
Was gone from out its piteous pleading eyes.
And, lo, the man felt hot tears on his cheeks.

The Cross was raised, and faint the outline stood
'Twixt Fidus and the lurid, murky sky
That threatened from afar a terror dark.
Then swift it came, for all of darkness dread
That air could hold, fell down upon the earth.
The stumbling crowd in panic slunk away;
But Fidus groped through darkness to the Cross.

He heard a moan of sorrow. Well he knew
The voice of Mary, she of Joseph's house.
His heart stood still; the Vision came again:
That evening fair—the Boy—the distant hills—
The Shadow of the Cross upon the earth
As He stood silent all absorbed in prayer—
The promise that himself should build a throne.
"Aye," so the Boy had said, "for it shall be
Raised up on high that every man may see,
Not Jews alone, but even ye of Rome;
And men from Britain too, on farthest shore
Of Rome's great Empire: they shall see and know
The King Who reigns upon that living throne;
And, in the Islands of uncharted seas
The King shall lifted be that all may know;
And worlds still undiscovered shall bow down
To do Him homage, yet shall hate His name.
For homage goes with hate, and hate will be
The measure of the homage that shall swell
In pæans great around His royal throne."