Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VIA CRUCIS, VIA LUCIS, by PHOEBE CARY



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VIA CRUCIS, VIA LUCIS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Questioning, blind, unsatisfied
Last Line: And the way of the cross is the way of light!
Subject(s): Jesus Christ


QUESTIONING, blind, unsatisfied,
Out of the dark my spirit cried, --
Wherefore for sinners, lost, undone,
Gave the Father his only Son?

Clear and sweet there came reply, --
Out of my soul or out of the sky
A voice like music answered: --
God so loved the world, it said.

Could not the Lord from heaven give aid?
Why was He born of the mother-maid?
Only the Son of man could be
Touched with man's infirmity!

Why must He lay his infant head
In the manger, where the beasts were fed?
So that the poorest here might cry,
My Lord was as lowly born as I!

Why for friends did He choose to know
Sinners and harlots here below?
Not to the righteous did He come,
But to find and bring the wanderers home.

He was tempted? Yes, He sounded then
All that hides in the hearts of men;
And He knoweth, when we intercede,
How to succor our souls in their need.

Why should they whom He called his own,
Deny, betray Him, leave Him alone?
That He might know their direst pain,
Who have trusted human love in vain!

Must He needs have washed the traitor's feet
Ere his abasement was made complete?
Yea, for women have thus laid down
Their hearts for a Judas to trample on!

By one cup might He not drink less;
Nor lose one drop of the bitterness;
Must He suffer, though without blame,
Stripes and buffeting, scorn and shame?

Alas! and wherefore should it be
That He must die on Calvary;
Must bear the pain and the cruel thrust,
Till his heart with its very anguish burst?

That martyrs, dying for his name,
Whether by cross, or flood, or flame,
Might know they were called to bear no more
Than He, their blessed Master, bore.

What did He feel in that last dread cry?
The height and the depth of agony!
All the anguish a mortal can,
Who dies forsaken of God and man!

Is there no way to Him at last
But that where His bleeding feet have passed?
Did he not to his followers say,
I am the Life, the Light, the Way?

Yea, and still from the heavens He saith
The gate of life is the gate of death;
Peace is the crown of faith's good fight,
And the way of the cross is the way of light!





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