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The Passion Play.

by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

Where falls the shadow of the Kofel cross

Athwart the Alpine snows, the rose of faith

Is blooming still in consecrated hearts,

And holy men another cross have hewn

Whereon the symboled Christ again shall die

To cleanse the world of sin. Within the vale

Where flows the Ammer like a trail of tears

Upon the Holy Mother's face, I see

The men and women, faithful to their vows,

Breathing the passion of Gethsemane.

I see the Saviour in Jerusalem;

I see the godless traders scourged; I see

Their wares strewn on the temple floor, their doves

Set free to wander on the roving winds;

I see Iscariot kiss the Nazarene;

I see the hate of Herod, and I hear

The multitude half-sob, half-wail, "The Cross!"

Then up the Way of Tears to Golgotha,

Crowned with the thorn, and then, last bitter scene,

The mortal death of God's immortal Son.

II.

The eagle wheels around the Kofel crags;

The chamois leaps the tumbling glacier stream;

The sunbeams dance upon the glistening snows

Like pixies, and the wooded mountain slopes

Thrill with the notes of songbirds; hymns of joy

Break from the forests and the smiling plains,

And where the Ammer winds its silvery way,

The wild swan ever follows like a prayer.

Who of God's creatures, then, has lost his way?

'Tis not the chamois, eagle or the swan;

'Tis not the mountain torrent, or the birds

That twitter all day long within the wood;

'Tis not the Ammer flowing to the sea.

Who of God's creatures, then, has lost his way?

Let us go in the Coliseum where

The fresh-hewn cross is lifted to the sky;

Let us gaze on the reverential throng

That marks Christ's passion in a silent awe,

And think a moment on the world of Man--

Man, made in God's own image, yet the one

Of all God's creatures who has lost his way.

III.

When, on the brooding darkness of the void

Wherein the world swung like a tiny star,

Death hovered with his sable wings outspread,

And Hell yawned far below, God gave to man

His promise of redemption through the blood

That dripped from pierced hands high on Calvary--

The mortal death of God's immortal Son.

The centuries have crumbled into dust;

Cities have risen on the shores of Time,

Then passed away like footprints in the sand;

Empires have vanished, kings have laid them down

In silence, but the word of Him remains

Who cried in agony upon the tree:

"Forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Once more the fresh-hewn cross lifts to the sky

In consecrated Oberammergau;

Once more I see the Christ in humble guise

Teaching the multitudes, and hear his voice

In supplication and in parable

Proclaim his mission to a sinful world.

Ah, could the world but gaze upon that Christ

With heart attuned unto the symboled love

That makes his face a radiant miracle!

The world hath need of thy great lesson now;

The money-changers throng the Temple gates;

The kiss of Judas burns from lips to brow;

The hate of Herod rankles in the hearts

Of scorners, and the poisoned crown of thorns

Which Greed has woven for humanity,

Bites like the chaplet that the Saviour wore

The day that He was crowned and crucified.

Methinks I see around the shining cross

Phantoms that shudder when the name of Christ

Is whispered by the multitude; I see

Grim Avarice with shriveled fingers clutch

A golden bauble; shrinking by his side,

Oppression stands and hugs a clanking chain,

While deeper in the gloom, with eyes aglow

And matted hair still dripping red with gore,

Sits War, her trembling hand enclasped within

The spectral hand of Death. O Christus, thou

To whom it has been given once again

To symbolize the passion of the cross,

Approach thy task with heart inspired by love,

And when the Saviour's words fall from thy lips,

Be thine the Saviour's exaltation when

He told the dying thief upon the cross

That he should be with Him in Paradise.