Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/63

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The Fig-Tree

Involuntarily I reached for a stone. Then Christ, the Brotherer, arose in the lighted doorway.

"Thou art still young," he called out to me. "Thy first thought upon thine own fig-tree shall go forth and sell me."

Meanwhile the ravine became so dark that nothing could any longer be distinguished. All sank back into the Orient's indescribable stillness, a stillness that has brought forth prophets. But from that evening I understood them who desire that no man shall possess an own fig-tree.

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