The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1866-04-05
Selected Poetry.

formation of the authorship:
THE CRUCIFIXION.
City of God! Jerusalem,
Why rushes out thy living stream?
The turban'd priest, the hoary seer,
The Roman in his pride are there!
And thousands, tens of thousands, still
Cluster round Calvary's wild hill.
Still onward rolls the living tide,
There rush the bridegroom and the bride;
Prince. beggar, soldier Pharisee,
The old. the young, the bond, the free;
The nations furious multitude,
All maddening with the cry of blood
IT'S glorious morn-from height to height
Shoot the keen arrows of the light;
And glorious, in their central shower,
Palace of holiness and power,
The temple on Moriah's brow
Looks a new risen sun below.
But wo to hill, and wo to vale!
Against them shall come forth a wall;
And wo to bridegroom and to bridei
For death shall on the whirlwind ride;
And wo to thee, Respondent shrine,
The sword is out for thee and thine.
Hide, hide thee in the heavens, thou sun,
Before the deed of blood is done
Upon that temples naughty steep
Jerusalem's last angels weep;
They see distinctions funeral pail
Black'ning DER lions sacred wall
Like tempests gathering on the shore,
They hear the coming armies roar;
They see in lions halls of state
The Sign that maketh desolate-
The idOl-Standard- spear
The tomb, the flame, the massacre
They see the vengeance fall; the chain,
The long, long age of guilt and pain;
The eXile's thousand desperate years,
The more than groans, the more than tears :;
Jerusalem vanished name,
Its tribes earths warming scott and shame
Still pours along the multitude,
Still rends the Heavens the shout of blood ::
But in the murdererS furious van
Who totters on? A weary man;
A cross upon his shoulders bound
His brow, his frame, one gushing wound
And now he treads on Calvary
What slave upon that hill must die?
What hand, what heart, in guilt imbrued,
Must be the mountain vulture's food
There stand two victims gaunt and bare
Two culprit emblems of despair
Yet who the third2 The yell of shame
Is frenzied at the sufferers name;
Hands clenched, teeth crashing, vesturcs
torn,
The curse, the taunt, the laugh of scon,
All that the dying hour can sting
Are round thee now, thou thorn-crowned
King.
Yet cursed and tortured tainted, spurned,
No wrath is for the wrath returned;
No vengeance flashes from the eye
The sufferer calmly waits to die
The sceptre-reed, the thorny crown,
Make on that pallid brow no froWn
At last the word of death is given.
The form is hound, the nails are driven:
Now triumph, Scribe and Pharisee!
Now Roman, bend the hooking knee
The cross is reared. The deed is done:
There stands NESSIAHs earthly throne
This was the earth's consummate hour:
For this had blazed the prophets power;
For this had swept the conquerors sword,
Had ravaged, raised cast down, restored
Persepolis, Rome, Babylon,
For this We sank, for this We shone
Yet things to which earth's brightest beam
: Were darkness-earth itself dream;
Foreheads on which shall crowns be laid
Sublime, when sun and star shall fade;
Worlds upon worlds, eternal things,
Hung on thy anguish-King of Kings
Still from his lip no curse has gone,
His lofty eye has looked no doom;
No earthquake-burst no angel brand.
brushes the black, blaspheming band,
What say those lips by anguish riven?
God, be my murderels forgiven p
He dies in whose high victory
The slayer, death himself shall die.
He dies! by whose all-conquering tread
Shall yet be crushed the serpent's head;
From his proud throne to darkness hurled.
The god and tempter of this world
He dies Creations awful Lord,
Jehovah, Christ, Eternal Word
To come in thunder from the skies:
To bid the buried world arise;
The Earth his footstool; Heaven his throne
Redeemerl may thy will be done.
CHRISTIANOS.