Pierced with heart-famine to behold
The storied prophet who of old
Gave life again unto the dead,
I went afar to find his way;
To follow him, as even they
Of self-bound hands and holden eyes
Who, drawing nigh him in the press,
Were healed of searing sin's duress.
I crossed a fretted Galilee
Of tidal fear—a self-pent sea;
I searched the blue Judaean hills,
The Temple's wreck and waste of stone.
I missed him still; athirst, alone,
I saw Golgotha's gloom appear,
And in an awful travail hour,
I named the Name from Tabor's tow'r.
At length I saw him face to face,
Healing as then his scattered race.
'Twas not by Salem's ruined wall,
Nor Kedron's vanished waterway
I saw the patient Christ to-day;
Here, in my neighbor's hallowed heart,
Love-lightened, pure, and humbly wise,
I saw Truth's Christly grandeur rise.
