Poems (King)/Gethsemane

For works with similar titles, see Gethsemane.

Gethsemane

INTO the olive gloom
Of lone Gethsemane the Master came;
Softly the sombre trees,
By low-voiced, murmuring breezes gently swayed,
Upon night's loom
Wove and unwove their web of light and shade.
Afar, where many a palm of starward aim
Tossed 'gainst the violet arch an emerald plume,
The plaintive bulbul sang, his heart aflame,
Wailing the Saviour's doom.

But see! He comes, the sinless Son of Man,
Wrapping His Godhead in a form of clay.
Behind dark clouds the wan moon veiled her light,
Nor dared to scan
The awful spectacle of that dread night,
When prone upon earth's breast the Man-God lay,
Pleading with silent Heaven to take away
The cup that overran
With wine of bitterest woe. Yet in despite
Of terror dark, the Saviour thrice began:—
Thy will, O God,—not mine,—be done for aye.

Bursting their wonted bonds, from every pore
Softly the red tears fall,
Wrung by a wordless anguish from His heart
That with a burning love for men ran o'er.
Acquainted He with grief, and with the smart
Of woes that most appall,
Yet with a God's own art
On Calvary's round He played His mighty part—
What could He more?

Lifted 'twixt earth and sky,
O loving Saviour, Thou with grief untold
Didst ope for us a pathway to the blest.
Thy tireless feet no more in sinners' quest
Will kiss the Syrian sands to grains of gold;
Yet from each altar high,
Not as to transient guest or stranger cold,
Thou callest to the wanderer of the fold
In words that cannot die:
O come, thou weary, laden one and rest,
Like John of old,
Upon the Saviour's breast—
Here thy best Friend behold!