NEAR JERUSALEM
Atop Golgotha, tower three darkened crosses;
Atop each cross, a bloody, lifeless form.
The evening clouds stretch out their crimson wings
Above the city’s mansions and cathedrals,
Above the homes, the walls and fragrant gardens,
While the winds that drive the restless roaming clouds,
Ruffle the silvery waves of ripened olives
Upon the mountain tops of distant Cedron.
Toward the city’s gates are noisily returning
The multitudes who saw the gruesome hanging,
Satisfied now, the lifeless forms ceased swaying.
A lonely soldier stands beneath each cross,
The first, a Roman, of his Rome is thinking,
Of Roman women, theatres and baths,
Longingly thinking of the crowded Forum,
The while he casts his brutal coarse damnation
Upon the stench-filled city, dormant at his feet,
And on the race of filthy Jews therein.
The second soldier sends to distant Gaul
His hope filled dreams and thoughts.
He thinks of woods alive with birds and beasts,
Of cooling streams with pure transparent waters,
Of light-haired women with their tempting charms,
The feasts, the songs, the cups o’erfilled with wine—
Of these he thinks, and casts a look of utter hatred
Scornfully, bitterly across the sleeping land.
The third, a dusky Ethiopian soldier,
Resting on his upward pointing spear
Rolls lazily his large, white gleaming eyeballs
Towards the swaying bodies, bedecked with smears of blood
Towards the rolling waves of gardens filled with olives,
The dreaming city bathing in the sunset,
The darkened, mystic, distant mountain tops . . .
He neither thinks nor dreams
But nods his head and yawns.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. The longest-living author of this work died in 1942, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 81 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
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| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) between 1929 and 1977 (inclusive) without a copyright notice. The longest-living author of this work died in 1987, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 36 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
