ST. PETER.
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Launch out into the deep,” Christ spake of oldTo Peter: and he launched into the deep;Strengthened should tempest wake which lay asleep,Strengthened to suffer heat or suffer cold.Thus, in Christ’s Prescience: patient to beholdA fall, a rise, a scaling Heaven’s high steep;Prescience of Love, which deigned to overleapThe mire of human errors manifold. Lord, Lover of Thy Peter, and of himBeloved with craving of a humbled heartWhich eighteen hundred years have satisfied;Hath he his throne among Thy SeraphimWho love? or sits he on a throne apart,Unique, near Thee, to love Thee human-eyed? St. Peter once: “Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?”—Much more I say: Lord, dost Thou stand and knockAt my closed heart more rugged than a rock,Bolted and barred, for Thy soft touch unmeet,Nor garnished nor in any wise made sweet?Owls roost within and dancing satyrs mock.Lord, I have heard the crowing of the cockAnd have not wept: ah, Lord, Thou knowest it.Yet still I hear Thee knocking, still I hear:“Open to Me, look on Me eye to eye,That I may wring thy heart and make it whole;And teach thee love because I hold thee dear,And sup with thee in gladness soul with soul,And sup with thee in glory by and by.” I followed Thee, my God, I followed TheeTo see the end:I turned back flying from Gethsemane,Turned back on flying steps to seeThy Face, my God, my Friend. Even fleeing from Thee my heart clave to Thee:I turned perforceConstrained, yea chained by love which maketh free;I turned perforce, and silentlyFollowed along Thy course. Lord, didst Thou know that I was following Thee?I weak and smallYet Thy true lover, mean tho’ I must be,Sinning and sorrowing—didst Thou see?O Lord, Thou sawest all. I thought I had been strong to die for Thee;I disbelievedThy word of warning spoken patiently:My heart cried, “That be far from me,”Till Thy bruised heart I grieved. Once I had urged: “Lord, this be far from Thee:”—Rebel to light,It needed first that Thou shouldst die for meOr ever I could plumb and seeLove’s lovely depth and height. Alas that I should trust myself, not Thee;Not trust Thy word:I faithless slumberer in Gethsemane,Blinded and rash; who instantlyPut trust, but in a sword. Ah Lord, if even at the last in TheeI had put faith,I might even at the last have counselled me,And not have heaped up crueltyTo sting Thee in Thy death. Alas for me, who bore to think on TheeAnd yet to lie:While Thou, O Lord, didst bear to look on meGoaded by fear to blasphemy,And break my heart and die. No balm I find in Gilead, yet in TheeNailed to Thy palmI find a balm that wrings and comforts me:Balm wrung from Thee by agony,My balm, mine only balm. Oh blessed John who standeth close to Thee,With Magdalene,And Thine own Mother praying silently,Yea, blessed above women she,Now blessed even as then. And blessed the scorned thief who hangs by Thee,Whose thirsting mouthThirsts for Thee more than water, whose eyes see,Whose lips confess in ecstasyNor feel their parching drouth. Like as the hart the water-brooks I TheeDesire, my handsI stretch to Thee; O kind Lord, pity me:Lord, I have wept, wept bitterly,I driest of dry lands. Lord, I am standing far far off from Thee;Yet is my heartHanging with Thee upon the accursed tree;The nails, the thorns, pierce Thee and me:My God, I claim my part. Scarce in Thy throne and kingdom; yet with TheeIn shame, in loss,In Thy forsaking, in Thine agony:Love crucified, behold even me,Me also bear Thy cross.
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