Page:Redemption, a Poem.djvu/164

 158 REDEMPTION.

Jesus famish'd came; beside the torrent, Faint, exhausted, lay, and scoop'd its waters Within his sacred hands, and sought to quench The pangs of ardent thirst, but nothing found T' appease the craving appetite for food. Not Jacob's house so sore the famine felt, Which grievously and long oppress'd the land; Nor that lone widow, who, with her lone son, Her last meal measured and prepared to die; Nor such the pangs of that lamenting seer, On evil times, midst evil men, who fell, That for the truth was long deprived of bread, And causeless in the miry dungeon cast. Dark was the hour, and desolate; that hour Alone more dark, when in Gethsemini, His sacred brow gush'd forth with drops of blood, The while he knelt in agony of prayer. That moment opportune the Devil chose, To tempt the virtue of the Son of God. From bestial to angelic form restored, The counterfeit of some bright spirit he seem'd. A flowing robe his gashful shape conceal'd, His waist a cymar girt, and on his head, He wore the semblance of a kingly crown; But passion marr'd his face, his lustre dimm'd, Whilst rude grimace for smiles, distorts his mouth, And so, with shuffling gait, and leer askant, Hesitant, from doubt how the essay might end,. The Tempter, tempting Jesus, thus began :

"What! art thou then indeed the Son of God, Whom we have heard of late so loud proclaim'd, And of whom fame such wond'rous things doth tell?

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