How strange that He, fount of a million books, Whose every sentence bloomed in libraries, Should only write some words upon the ground, Some fleeting words the rain soon washed away! What did He write before the Pharisees, Before that sinning woman doomed to death? Stooping, and with His finger for a pen, What did He write upon that holy ground? I think He wrote the sins of human-kind! Their falseness and their cruelty and pride, Their passion and their selfishness and hate, The sins of all those scribes and Pharisees! I think He also wrote the love of God! The love of God that flies to every woe, And never asks a merit, but a need; The love of God that lives upon a cross! As one by one they read the traced words, Each his own sins, and each the love of God, How silently and shamed they went away, Till Jesus and the woman stood alone! Ah, Master, had I choice of all the books That human wit and wisdom ever wrote, Worthless were all beside the memory Of those few transient words upon the ground! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CURFEW by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW A CHRISTMAS CAROL by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE HENDECASYLLABICS by ALFRED TENNYSON THE PRINCESS: [BUGLE] SONG by ALFRED TENNYSON POLYHYMNIA: SONNET TO LADY FALKLAND UPON HER GOING TO INTO IRELAND by WILLIAM BASSE THE DEATH OF THE POOR by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE |