Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/13

Rh While Romans watch; and when the dawn shall shine

Pilate, to judge the victim will appear,

Pass sentence—­yield him up to crucify;

And on that cross the spotless Christ must die.

Dreams, then, are true—­for thus my vision ran;

Surely some oracle has been with me,

The gods have chosen me to reveal their plan,

To warn an unjust judge of destiny:

I, slumbering, heard and saw; awake I know,

Christ's coming death, and Pilate's life of woe.

I do not weep for Pilate—­who could prove

Regret for him whose cold and crushing sway

No prayer can soften, no appeal can move;

Who tramples hearts as others trample clay,

Yet with a faltering, an uncertain tread,

That might stir up reprisal in the dead.

Forced to sit by his side and see his deeds;

Forced to behold that visage, hour by hour,

In whose gaunt lines, the abhorrent gazer reads

A triple lust of gold, and blood, and power;

A soul whom motives, fierce, yet abject, urge

Rome's servile slave, and Judah's tyrant scourge.

How can I love, or mourn, or pity him?

I, who so long my fettered hands have wrung;