Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.

Christus: A Mystery

Part I. The Divine Tragedy. The First Passover. IV. In the Cornfields

ONWARD through leagues of sun-illumined corn,

As if through parted seas, the pathway runs,

And crowned with sunshine as the Prince of Peace

Walks the beloved Master, leading us,

As Moses led our fathers in old times

Out of the land of bondage! We have found

Him of whom Moses and the Prophets wrote,

Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph.

Can any good come out of Nazareth?

Can this be the Messiah?

Come and see.

The summer sun grows hot: I am anhungered.

How cheerily the Sabbath-breaking quail

Pipes in the corn, and bids us to his Feast

Of Wheat Sheaves! How the bearded, ripening ears

Toss in the roofless temple of the air;

As if the unseen hand of some High-Priest

Waved them before Mount Tabor as an altar!

It were no harm, if we should pluck and eat.

How wonderful it is to walk abroad

With the Good Master! Since the miracle

He wrought at Cana, at the marriage feast,

His fame hath gone abroad through all the land,

And when we come to Nazareth, thou shalt see

How his own people will receive their Prophet,

And hail him as Messiah! See, he turns

And looks at thee.

Behold an Israelite

In whom there is no guile.

Whence knowest thou me?

Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast

Under the fig-tree, I beheld thee.

Rabbi!

Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King

Of Israel!

Because I said I saw thee

Under the fig-tree, before Philip called thee,

Believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things.

Hereafter thou shalt see the heavens unclosed,

The angels of God ascending and descending

Upon the Son of Man!

Hail, Rabbi!

Hail!

Behold how thy disciples do a thing

Which is not lawful on the Sabbath-day,

And thou forbiddest them not!

Have ye not read

What David did when he anhungered was,

And all they that were with him? How he entered

Into the house of God, and ate the shew-bread,

Which was not lawful, saving for the priests?

Have ye not read, how on the Sabbath-days

The priests profane the Sabbath in the Temple,

And yet are blameless? But I say to you,

One in this place is greater than the Temple!

And had ye known the meaning of the words,

I will have mercy and not sacrifice,

The guiltless ye would not condemn. The Sabbath

Was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.