CEASELESS is THE welter of rain that wearies the sky. Alas for the forsaken! Alas for the homeless wanderer! The shrieks of the wind die away in sobs and sighs. What flying phantom does it pursue across the pathless wild? The night is hopeless like the eyes of the blind. Alas for the forsaken! Alas for the homeless wanderer! The waves are frantic in the river lost in the shoreless dark. The thunder growls, the lightning flashes its teeth. The lights of the stars are dead. Alas for the forsaken! Alas for the homeless wanderer!
I HID MYSELF to evade you. Now that I am caught at last, strike me, see if I flinch. Finish the game for good. If you win in the end, strip me of all that I have. I have had my laughter and songs in wayside booths and stately halls,- now that you have come into my life, make me weep, see if you can break my heart.
FROM His eternal seat Christ comes down to this earth, where, ages ago, in the bitter cup of death He poured his deathless life for those who came to the call and those who remained away. He looks about Him, and sees the weapons of evil that wounded His own age. The arrogant spikes and spears, the slim, sly knives, the scimitar in diplomatic sheath, crooked and cruel, are hissing and raining sparks as they are sharpened on monster wheels. But the most fearful of them all, at the hands of the slaughterers, are those on which has been engraved His own name, that are fashioned from the texts of His own words fused in the fire of hatred and hammered by hypocritical greed. He presses His hand upon His heart; He feels that the age-long moment of His death has not yet ended, that new nails, turned out in countless numbers by those who are learned in cunning craftsmanship, pierce Him in every joint They had hurt Him once, standing at the shadow of their temple; they are born anew in crowds. From before their sacred altar they shout to the soldiers, 'Strike!' And the Son of Man in agony cries, 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?'