CANTO XI.
THE SAINTS.
"THE cross was looming yet, Mirèio,
Aloft on the Judæan mount of woe,
Wet with the blood of God; and all the time
Seemed crying to the city of the crime,
'What hast thou done, thou lost and slumbering,—
What hast thou done, I say, with Bethlehem's King?'
"The angry clamors of the streets were stayed;
Cedron alone a low lamenting made
Afar; and Jordan rolled a gloomy tide,
Hasting into the desert, there to hide
The overflowings of his grief and rage
'Mid terebinth and lentisk foliage.
"And all the poorer folk were heavy-hearted,
Knowing it was the Christ who had departed,
First having opened his own prison-door,
On friends and followers to look once more,
The sacred keys unto St. Peter given,
And, like an eagle, soared away to heaven.
