Page:Poet Lore, volume 28, 1917.djvu/506

And said, Ah, come down from the cross! For Thou
Didst style Thyself king! Thou, that wouldst destroy
The temple and then build it in three days,
Well, save Thyself!
⁠Stood by also chief priests
And scribes with long and flowing beards, and said
Amongst themselves: True ,true, He saved others;
Let Him then save Himself now—There also
Were many women looking on afar,
Who ministered to Him in Galilee,
Salome, Mary, and Magdalene, and who
Came up with Him unto Jerusalem.

Crucified, naked, shorn, He was numbered
With transgressors. And crusted blood clung to
His scourged body, while ruddy streams oozed from
His hands and feet and dripped upon the ground.
His dying eyes gazed out into distance,
Across the white city, hills and woodlands
And ridges of the peaceful peaks in whose
Lap lie the blue waters of Galilee.

He bowed His head.
⁠A winged rustling reached
His ear. ’Twas not the Father’s angel with
Refreshment’s chalice for a weary soul—
An unclean spirits with it batlike wings
Outstretched upon the air flew unto Him.
He had to suffer Satan to sit on
His cross, lean toward His head. For faint within
Him was His spirit and weak to resist.

And Satan then said: Woeful Sufferer,
Upon Thy cross of wood we meet again!
Today the last time. ’Tis settled today.
The battle has been fought.
⁠Rememberst Thou
Three years hence, when I carried Thee yon in
The wilderness upon a high mountain
And shewed Thee mighty kingdoms, promised Thee
All of the glory of this world, shouldst Thou
Fall down and worship me? Thou didst refuse.