Scenes and Hymns of Life, with Other Religious Poems/On a Picture of Christ Bearing the Cross
ON A PICTURE OF CHRIST BEARING THE CROSS.
PAINTED BY VELASQUEZ.[1]
By the dark stillness brooding in the sky,
Holiest of sufferers! round thy path of woe,
And by the weight of mortal agony
Laid on thy drooping form and pale meek brow,
My heart was awed: the burden of thy pain
Sank on me with a mystery and a chain.
I look'd once more, and, as the virtue shed
Forth from thy robe of old, so fell a ray
Of victory from thy mien! and round thy head,
The halo, melting spirit-like away,
Seem'd of the very soul's bright rising born,
To glorify all sorrow, shame, and scorn.
And upwards, through transparent darkness gleaming,
Gazed, in mute reverence, woman's earnest eye,
Lit, as a vase whence inward light is streaming,
With quenchless faith, and deep love's fervency;
Gathering, like incense round some dim-veiled shrine,
About the Form, so mournfully divine!
Oh! let thine image, as e'en then it rose,
Live in my soul for ever, calm and clear,
Making itself a temple of repose,
Beyond the breath of human hope or fear!
A holy place, where through all storms may lie
One living beam of day-spring from on high.
- ↑ This picture is in the possession of the Viscount Harberton, Merrion Square, Dublin.