Across the Sea and Other Poems | Page 6

portals near,?The air is sweet to us with vesper prayer;?While o'er the gate our lifted eyes behold?The sacred sign--a cross of shining gold.
A LEGEND OF ST. JOHN.
Inscribed to
C. C. Bonney.
A LEGEND OF ST. JOHN.
Then Jesus answered unto Peter, "If I will?That he shall tarry till I come again,?What is it unto thee?" He spake of John.
In Russia there still lives a legend sweet,?Repeated by the grandsire to the child,--?A dear old legend, which has lived so long,?And held an honored place so many years?By ancient firesides long since turned to dust--?A legend which doth mind us so of eve,?Of lengthened shadows, wonder-opened eyes,?And groups which listened ere they went their way,?We well might wish the story may be true,--?Of him who once had lain on Jesus' breast.?This is the tale, as I remember it.
When John to Patmos' isle was banished,?He saw and heard unutterable things.?The "Revelation" is a shadow poor,?Of his most marvelous experience.?But human language never can convey,?And human intellect can never span,?Things not of earth. When from his beauteous dream?Unwillingly the loved disciple woke,?His heart was burning with new zeal for God?And therefore with more tender love for man.?Down the steep mountain side, with ready feet,?To preach the gospel to the Greeks, he ran,?To tell of that fair city with its gates?Of gleaming pearl, and streets of shining gold,?Built for the people of the gracious Lord.?But to the Greeks his words were foolishness.?The Stoics cried, "What doth this babbler say??He seems a setter forth of unknown gods!"?And thus they closed their ears against his words?Of beauty, and went on their careless way.
'Twere long to tell how patiently he toiled;?How some believed, and some refused to hear;?Of all the cities that he visited;?And how his words were always, "God is love;"?How he was saved by miracle from death,?When cast into a pot of boiling oil;?How in a weary dungeon he was thrown,?Yet counted it but gain, for in the dark?The angels dwelt with him and made it light.?At last he was released. Perhaps his face--?So full of holy love, so angel-sweet,?He seemed Christ's brother--moved his cruel foes?To pity; and they bade him go in peace.?So from the rusty iron gates he passed,?With a bowed form, and hair as white as snow.
John traversed Europe for the Lord. At last?His pilgrim feet pressed Russia. Through its coast?He preached with holy fervor, as was meet,?The message of the Lord to erring men.?But everywhere with cold indifference,?Or anger, or contempt, his words were met:?Until, at last, with bleeding feet, he came?To bleak Siberia. A churlish crowd?Received his message with a stupid stare;?Which, as he gently told them of their need?Of Him who came to save them from their sins,?Changed to a glare of rage. So curst were they,?They would have slain him; but on his calm face?There fell a light supernal, and he passed?In safety through their midst, and came at last?To where the Arctic laves with icy wave?The chill Siberian coast, and there a boat?Filled with strong men received him, and they plied?Their oars, and like a swift-winged bird, sped north.
Within the iceberg barricade which girds?Impregnably the Northern Pole, 'tis said?There is a Beulah Land surpassing fair,?With beaming sky and soft delicious air,?Rich with the perfume sweet of blossoms rare.?Its trees have never turned to russet tinge;?The girdling waves, warm as the summer, fringe?Its golden sands with lace of foam, and die?In soft accord with bird-song melody.?No cruel heats nor chilling blasts invade,?But the sweet quietude of twilight shade?Brings ever to the mind a holy calm.?And there, 'tis said, the Great Apostle waits?Until the end of all things shall draw near,?When he will come again, and preach to men?With the old words of love, and move their hearts?To penitence, and they will captive yield?To the sweet words of truth, and give their lives?With heartiness to deeds of charity.
Come, blest Apostle! from the icy North?Haste thy departure, for the world is faint?And weary for the music of thy feet.?The earth is growing old. Two thousand years?Have fled since thou and Jesus walked with men.?Two thousand years of bitterness of creeds;?Two thousand years of selfishness and crime.
Come thou! our clouded hearts to gently win?From chilling unbelief, from fear and sin.?Come, as to evening comes the silver moon;?As comes the south-wind on the wings of June:?From the far south the waves of summer roll,?Come from the North, thou summer of the soul!?O, how our eyes are lifted to behold?The rising of the star whose beams of gold?Will usher in, with Bethlehem songs above,?The day of Love--sweet universal Love.?Thou art its priest, O son of Zebedee,?And we are waiting--waiting still for thee.?Why tarry yet thy footsteps from afar?Thou gentler John the Baptist? May thy star?The herald of _The Christ_ uprising shine,?The harbinger of love--of Love Divine.
THE BLESSED VALE.
Inscribed to
H. N. Powers.
THE BLESSED VALE.
PRELUDE.
Why should we journey