“Thy straight
Long beam lies steady on the Cross.  Ah me! 
What secret would thy radiant finger show? 
Of thy bright mastership is this the key? 
Is this thy secret then, and is it woe?

Thou dost image, thou dost follow
That king-maker of Creation
Who ere Hellas hailed Apollo
Gave thee, angel-god, thy station;

Thou art of Him a type memorial. 
Like Him thou hangst in dreadful pomp of blood
Upon thy Western rood;
And His stained brow did veil like thine to night.

Now, with wan ray that other sun of Song
Sets in the bleakening waters of my soul. 
One step, and lo! the Cross stands gaunt and long
’Twixt me and yet bright skies, a presaged dole.

Even so, O Cross! thine is the victory,
Thy roots are fast within our fairest fields;
Brightness may emanate in Heaven from Thee: 
Here Thy dread symbol only shadow yields.”

This is ever the first appearance of the Highest when men see it.  And, to the far-seeing eyes of the poet, nature must also wear the same aspect.  Apollo, when his last word is said, must speak the same language as Christ.  Paganism is an elaborate device to do without the Cross.  Yet it is ever a futile device, for the Cross is in the very grain and essence of all life; it is absolutely necessary to all permanent and satisfying gladness.  Francis Thompson is not the first who has shrunk back from the bitter truth.  Many others have found the bitterness of the Cross a lesson too dreadful for their joyous or broken hearts to learn.  Who are we that we should judge them?  Have we not all rebelled at this bitter aspect of the Highest, and said, in our own language—­

“Ah! is Thy love indeed
A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?”

Finally we have the answer of Christ to the soul He has chased down after so long a following—­

“Strange, piteous, futile thing! 
Wherefore should any set thee love apart? 
Seeing none but I makes much of nought (He said),
And human love needs human meriting: 
How hast thou merited—­
Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot? 
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art! 
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me? 
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou mightst seek it in My arms. 
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: 
Rise, clasp my hand, and come.”

And the poem ends upon the patter of the little feet—­

“Halts by me that footfall: 
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? 
Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest! 
Thou drovest love from thee, who drovest Me.”