Then why Doth he come here to sadden with his presence Our marriage feast, belonging to a sect Haters of women, and that taste not wine?
THE MUSICIANS.
My undefiled is but one, The only one of her mother, The choice of her that bare her;The daughters saw her and blessed her;
The queens and the concubines praised her;Saying, Lo! who is this That looketh forth as the morning?
MANAHEM aside.
The Ruler of the Feast is gazing at me, As if he asked, why is that old man here Among the revellers? And thou, the Anointed!
Why art thou here? I see as in a vision A figure clothed in purple, crowned with thorns;I see a cross uplifted in the darkness, And hear a cry of agony, that shall echo Forever and forever through the world!
ARCHITRICLINUS.
Give us more wine.These goblets are all empty.
MARY to CHRISTUS.
They have no wine!
CHRISTUS.
O woman, what have I
To do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.
MARY to the servants.
Whatever he shall say to you, that do.
CHRISTUS.
Fill up these pots with water.
THE MUSICIANS.
Come, my beloved, Let us go forth into the field, Let us lodge in the villages;Let us get up early to the vineyards, Let us see if the vine flourish, Whether the tender grape appear, And the pomegranates bud forth.
CHRISTUS.
Draw out now And bear unto the Ruler of the Feast.
MANAHEM aside.
O thou, brought up among the Essenians, Nurtured in abstinence, taste not the wine!
It is the poison of dragons from the vineyards Of Sodom, and the taste of death is in it!
ARCHITRICLINUS to the BRIDEGROOM.
All men set forth good wine at the beginning, And when men have well drunk, that which is worse;But thou hast kept the good wine until now.
MANAHEM aside.
The things that have been and shall be no more, The things that are, and that hereafter shall he, The things that might have been, and yet were not, The fading twilight of great joys departed, The daybreak of great truths as yet unrisen, The intuition and the expectation Of something, which, when come, is not the same, But only like its forecast in men's dreams, The longing, the delay, and the delight, Sweeter for the delay; youth, hope, love, death, And disappointment which is also death, All these make up the sum of human life;A dream within a dream, a wind at night Howling across the desert in despair, Seeking for something lost it cannot find.
Fate or foreseeing, or whatever name Men call it, matters not; what is to be Hath been fore-written in the thought divine From the beginning.None can hide from it, But it will find him out; nor run from it, But it o'ertaketh him! The Lord hath said it.
THE BRIDEGROOM to the BRIDE, on the balcony.
When Abraham went with Sarah into Egypt, The land was all illumined with her beauty;But thou dost make the very night itself Brighter than day! Behold, in glad procession, Crowding the threshold of the sky above us, The stars come forth to meet thee with their lamps;And the soft winds, the ambassadors of flowers, From neighboring gardens and from fields unseen, Come laden with odors unto thee, my Queen!
THE MUSICIANS.
Awake, O north-wind, And come, thou wind of the South.
Blow, blow upon my garden, That the spices thereof may flow out.
IV
IN THE CORNFIELDS
PHILIP.
Onward through leagues of sun-illumined corn, As if through parted seas, the pathway runs, And crowned with sunshine as the Prince of Peace Walks the beloved Master, leading us, As Moses led our fathers in old times Out of the land of bondage! We have found Him of whom Moses and the Prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph.
NATHANAEL.
Can any good come out of Nazareth?
Can this be the Messiah?
PHILIP.
Come and see.
NATHANAEL.
The summer sun grows hot: I am anhungered.
How cheerily the Sabbath-breaking quail Pipes in the corn, and bids us to his Feast Of Wheat Sheaves! How the bearded, ripening ears Toss in the roofless temple of the air;As if the unseen hand of some High-Priest Waved them before Mount Tabor as an altar!
It were no harm, if we should pluck and eat.
PHILIP.
How wonderful it is to walk abroad With the Good Master! Since the miracle He wrought at Cana, at the marriage feast, His fame hath gone abroad through all the land, And when we come to Nazareth, thou shalt see How his own people will receive their Prophet, And hail him as Messiah! See, he turns And looks at thee.
CHRISTUS.
Behold an Israelite In whom there is no guile.
NATHANAEL.
Whence knowest thou me?
CHRISTUS.
Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast Under the fig-tree, I beheld thee.
NATHANAEL.
Rabbi!
Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King Of Israel!
CHRISTUS.
Because I said I saw thee Under the fig-tree, before Philip called thee, Believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things.
Hereafter thou shalt see the heavens unclosed, The angels of God ascending and descending Upon the Son of Man!
PHAIRISEES, passing.
Hail, Rabbi!
CHRISTUS.
Hail!
PHARISEES.
Behold how thy disciples do a thing Which is not lawful on the Sabbath-day, And thou forbiddest them not!
CHRISTUS.
Have ye not read What David did when he anhungered was, And all they that were with him? How he entered Into the house of God, and ate the shew-bread, Which was not lawful, saving for the priests?
Have ye not read, how on the Sabbath-days The priests profane the Sabbath in the Temple, And yet are blameless? But I say to you, One in this place is greater than the Temple!
And had ye known the meaning of the words, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, The guiltless ye would not condemn.The Sabbath Was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
Passes on with the disciples.
PHARISEES.
This is, alas! some poor demoniac Wandering about the fields, and uttering His unintelligible blasphemies Among the common people, who receive As prophecies the words they comprehend not!
Deluded folk! The incomprehensible Alone excites their wonder.There is none So visionary, or so void of sense, But he will find a crowd to follow him!
V
NAZARETH
CHRISTUS, reading in the Synagogue.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.