  THE Lord died yesterday:— Lowly and single, lost, His worn disciples, tossed With pain of tears, have wandered wide In the country-fields, as sheep might stray. No need to hide, For harvesters that shout and sing have heard Of the far city’s rumour scarce a word, And only stare to see a stranger lost. Tears fight with Peter’s breath— He roves a field of grass, At eventide ... a mass Of faded flower of grass, grown grey, Cut from sap and clinging into death, And bowed one way. Alone amid the darkness soon to be Deep midnight, Peter mourneth bitterly Christ buried, the sunk day, the flower of grass. Yet he had hailed Him Christ.... The straw and clover feel Sudden a lifted heel, And, rudely whirled aside, are left By the stranger’s feet, they had enticed Beneath their weft. But he is on the rock, the narrow way, As if he talked with something he would say, As if he would conceive as he could feel. He stands thus in sweet dark, The hay upon the air, His feet on bare rock bare, Set as a statue’s, waiting on.... Is it a trumpet raised and sounded? Hark, Hath a torch shone? The cock crows and the sun appears! Yet dry Is Peter’s face, although the dawn-bird cry, As the first Easter Day assumes the air. |
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