Page:Redemption, a Poem.djvu/299

 REDEMPTION. 293

On Golgotha the God-man prostrate lies,

Resistless, as extended on the cross,

His tort'rers nail him to the murd'rous wood.

Harsh sounds the clank of hammers on the ear,

As through his sacred flesh the iron grates,

And in his soul death's agonies renews.

Aloft the streaming wood at length is raised,

And all the woeful sight displays to view.

Behold the Man ! Afflicted Mother, see;

Behold, who lay an infant on thy knee ; his form

So beautiful, so tender then, so fair;

So mangled, bruised, disfigured now.

Daughters of Solyma, behold the Man !

He weeps, groans, suffers thus, for you,

That by his suff rings you may now be heal'd;

Heal'd of the leprosy of sin; and wash'd,

Not in Abana, nor in Pharphar's floods,

Nor yet in Jordan's consecrated stream,

But in the river of his sacred blood;

Be wash'd, be purified, and wholly cleansed.

Ye men of Israel, behold the Man !

Not by his foes transfix' d, but by his friends;

His own familiar friends, men of his mind,

Who in the house of God, in Sion's ways,

In sweet accord .together with him trod,

In his own house, which he had come to save.

Behold him, Israel, men of Juda, see;

Behold the Man, whom basely ye destroy.

Ah ! had his own reviled, he might have borne;

Had but they hated, he had silent stood ;

Behold, fallen world, the Man, who blots

The dread hand writing of the dread decree,

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