Was this Beata's grief in thought of Christ upon the cross: that a soul like his, though timid, and immured in monkish cells, could not be there in person, go and help the Body down? His heart dared lead its shadowed self on to a canvas mimed to designate a hidden wish, made palpable in paint: to be of some small service: lift the Hands or hold the Nails? And yet, how paradoxical: one sees him stand outside the group performing there its holy work in huddled mass, while he, his face averted, long and thin and pitiful, looks too petrified to come and add his effort to the deed! Did his rehumbled piety break in and thrust him back, that mirrors him just stricken white who dared aspire so, full penitence rebuking what was once audacity? Or was his vacillation but the image of a plan: the act of service imminent, emotion intervenes, and smites the whole man feeble, palsies arms and legs and feet? Was this Beata's sorrow, retraversing Golgotha, that brought his body up to where -- it had to turn its head? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AFTER DIVORCE; FOR NAHID SARMAD by KAREN SWENSON DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI: 4. THE MOON'S ORCHESTRA by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER SONNET: 19. ON HIS BLINDNESS by JOHN MILTON THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER NOVEMBER, 1806 by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH |