So once more, Jesus, I behold your feet, feet that long since my pitiful hands laid bare, to wash them,—then they seemed a boy's, I thought; how they stood tangled in my covering hair, like a white wild thing in the briers caught. For the first time, this night of love, your sweet and never-cherished limbs are mine to know. I never warmed them with my body's heat,— now I may only watch them, thus brought low. But look, your hands, your wasted hands, are torn: Beloved, not by me, with passion's thorn. Your heart is open to the passerby: none should have entered there, save only I. Now you are tired, your mouth, that tired flower, has no desire for my mouth of woe.— When, Jesus, Jesus, O when was our hour? Strangely together to our doom we go. |