“Yet far off in dim memory it seems,
With all its horror mingled happy dreams,
Strange cries of glory rocked my sleeping head,
And a glad people watched beside my bed.
One day into mysterious darkness thrown,
I saw the promise of my future close;
I was a little child, left all alone,
Alas! and I had foes.
“They cast me living in a dreary tomb,
Never mine eyes saw sunlight pierce the gloom,
Only ye, brother angels, used to sweep
Down from your heaven, and visit me in sleep.
’Neath blood-red hands my young life withered
there.
Dear Lord, the bad are miserable all,
Be not Thou deaf, like them, unto my prayer,
It is for them I call.”
The angels sang: “See heaven’s high
arch unfold,
Come, we will crown thee with the stars
above,
Will give thee cherub-wings of blue and gold,
And thou shalt learn our ministry of love,
Shalt rock the cradle where some mother’s tears
Are dropping o’er her restless little
one,
Or, with thy luminous breath, in distant spheres,
Shalt kindle some cold sun.”
Ceased the full choir, all heaven was hushed to hear,
Bowed the fair face, still wet with many a tear,
In depths of space, the rolling worlds were stayed,
Whilst the Eternal in the infinite said:
“O king, I kept thee far from human state,
Who hadst a dungeon only for thy throne,
O son, rejoice, and bless thy bitter fate,
The slavery of kings thou hast not known,
What if thy wasted arms are bleeding yet,
And wounded with the fetter’s cruel
trace,
No earthly diadem has ever set
A stain upon thy face.
“Child, life and hope were with thee at thy
birth,
But life soon bowed thy tender form to earth,
And hope forsook thee in thy hour of need.
Come, for thy Saviour had His pains divine;
Come, for His brow was crowned with thorns like thine,
His sceptre was a reed.”
Dublin University Magazine.
("Lorsqu’a l’antique Olympe immolant
l’evangile.")
[Bk. II. v., 1823.]
[There was in Rome one antique usage as follows:
On the eve of the execution day, the sufferers were
given a public banquet—at the prison gate—known
as the “Free Festival.”—CHATEAUBRIAND’S
“Martyrs.”]
When the Christians were doomed to the lions of old
By the priest and the praetor, combined to uphold
An
idolatrous cause,
Forth they came while the vast Colosseum throughout
Gathered thousands looked on, and they fell ’mid
the shout
Of
“the People’s” applause.
On the eve of that day of their evenings the last!
At the gates of their dungeon a gorgeous repast,
Rich,
unstinted, unpriced,
That the doomed might (forsooth) gather strength ere
they bled,
With an ignorant pity the jailers would spread
For
the martyrs of Christ.
