CHRIST IN THE GARDEN by W. S. Bissonnette

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 5, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 10.

CHRIST IN THE GARDEN.

By W. S. Bissonnette

Slow, slow that figure roams The evening dusk always: as slow, more still Than eve's brown shadow comes. Deep, deep, those footsteps thrill The world's dumb hollow where the wild earth homes. Her old low language yearns; The lights are in the vault, The starlight burns Along the stony track of some lost rill That scars the lonely hill, Streaking a silver path, a tender thread, But hard as wintry iron to the tread; Not there His feet may halt. But walk the teeth instead The world's bright ridge has set for whoso spurns. Slow, slow, He turns, Seeks, enters in,—a garden dry as salt

O lonely weight Bowed lowly down, and sunken head, All hungered, yet all consecrate; Be still unfed, Still desolate. That tired woe may find a bed, And every homeless pang an open gate Where famished hope is handless led, O House and Hearthstone of our fate.

O brooding brow, Where, moonlike, burns a tender place Of high and lonely sorrow; Thou, O mystic face, Dimmed mutely now, Through human woe for human grace,— Plead still, yearn on, ye wist not how, Wild lips, thy trembling warmest space, Thou buildest our far bliss, O brow.

O hallowed eyes, And bosom deepened for our rest,— The home of tears, the haunt of sighs,— O brow, O breast Where sorrow lies, Where trouble turns as to a nest; O breath, O tears that sink and rise, Sink low, be lost, rise far and blest, The wind and dew of Paradise!

W. S. BISSONNETTE.

Colorado Springs, Colo.