Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895.

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus

Richard Watson Dixon (1833–1900)

Jos.—I TOOK His Body from the tree,

Wrapped it in linen decently,

And many times I bent my knee

Before I buried Him.

Nic.—I took of aloes and of myrrh,

That I might aid thee to inter

That Holy Thing in sepulchre;

We were two Nethenim.

Jos.—I had a sepulchre of stone,

Wherein afore was buried none:

In this I laid Him all alone;

The stone did many seal.

Nic.—I stood afar when in my sight

The crosses rose upon the height,

And fretted with their forms the light

Above the dreadful hill.

Jos.—I am a noble counsellor,

God’s kingdom have I waited for,

But was not of the council, nor

After the deed of them.

Nic.—A ruler of the Jews am I;

And His disciple secretly;

I pleaded, that He should not die,

Before the Sanhedrim.

Jos.—Riches have I in Arimathy.

For it is said in prophecy

That he among the rich should die:

That prophet I fulfil.

Nic.—Three years afore I came by night

To visit Him, who did invite

The weary to a burden light,

And all the sick did heal.

Jos.—I was within the temple when

He scourged away the throng of men;

It was at the beginning then

Of all His ministry.

Nic.—I learned His doctrine in my mind,

His kingdom, that should be confined,

To those of water and of wind

New-born by mystery.

Jos.—And I remember and can tell,

When He the temple purged so well,

How many said that Israel

Did now their King possess.

Nic.—That King should be, He said to me,

Raised not on throne but on the tree

As Moses made the serpent be

Raised in the wilderness.