Desolation

Who comes?... O Beautiful! Low thunder thrums, As if a chorus struck its shawms and drums. The sun runs forth To stare at Him, who journeys north From Edom, from the lonely sands, arrayed In vesture sanguine as at Bosra made. O beautiful and whole, In that red stole!

Behold, O clustered grapes, His garment rolled, And wrung about His waist in fold on fold! See, there is blood Now on His garment, vest and hood; For He hath leapt upon a loaded vat, And round His motion splashes the wine-fat, Though there is none to play The Vintage-lay.

The Word Of God, His name ... But nothing heard Save beat of His lone feet forever stirred To tread the press-- None with Him in His loneliness; No treader with Him in the spume, no man.

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O task Of sacrifice, That we may bask In clemency and keep an undreamt Pasch! O Treader lone, How pitiful Thy shadow thrown Athwart the lake of wine that Thou hast made! O Thou, most desolate, with limbs that wade Among the berries, dark and wet, Thee we forget!