Page:Poems Kennedy.djvu/99

'Tis that he dreaded while he drained the cup
 That courage is the world's high creed;
'Tis that, in agony, he cried for help
 That he is pitiful to human need!

THAT MIDDLE CROSS ON CALVARY

IT still is there, though time has run
 From century to century—
That milestone of the flying years—
 That lowly Mount of Calvary.

Dead empires with their weedy crowns
 Have crumbled into voiceless dust,
And scepters that once ruled the world
 Are heaps of brown corroding rust;

In Egypt Memnon sings no more—
 We only guess the sun-waked tones;
We tread on buried Babylon,
 And seek in vain Palmyra's stones;

The clustered domes of Nineveh
 Are shards upon the desert sand,
And Troy and all her mighty hosts
 Are legends of an unknown land.

But—unforgotten through the drift
 Of ages dim with mystery,
That lowly Mountain keeps the trail
 That leads to Immortality.

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