Poems (Jenkins)/Ecce Homo!
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Ecce Homo!
HE hung upon a wayside Calvary,
From whence no more the carven Christ looks down
With wide, blank eyes beneath the thorny crown,
On the devout and careless, passing by.
The Cross had shaken with his agony,
His blood had stained the dancing grasses brown,
But when we found him, though the weary frown,
That waited on death's long-delayed mercy,
Still bent his brow, yet he was dead and cold,
With drooping head and patient eyes astare,
That would not shut. As we stood turned to ice
The sun remembered Golgotha of old,
And made a halo of his yellow hair
In mockery of that fruitless sacrifice.
From whence no more the carven Christ looks down
With wide, blank eyes beneath the thorny crown,
On the devout and careless, passing by.
The Cross had shaken with his agony,
His blood had stained the dancing grasses brown,
But when we found him, though the weary frown,
That waited on death's long-delayed mercy,
Still bent his brow, yet he was dead and cold,
With drooping head and patient eyes astare,
That would not shut. As we stood turned to ice
The sun remembered Golgotha of old,
And made a halo of his yellow hair
In mockery of that fruitless sacrifice.