Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


A WAYSIDE CROSS by LOUIS JONES MAGEE

First Line: THE MOVING PICTURES OF MY FLIGHT
Last Line: A WAYSIDE CROSS.
Subject(s): CROSS, THE; CRUCIFIXION; JESUS CHRIST - CRUCIFIXION;

THE moving pictures of my flight
Through planted fields and orchards white
With flower, past tower and sleepy town,
All vanished, save a cross that stood
Beside the way, close to the wood,
Below a hill whose slope of brown
Warmed with the first green of the vine;
And there a woman bowing down
Before a shrine.

On paven streets I hear the roar
Again, move in the crowd once more;
But now when burdens seem to be
Too hard, those hillsides reappear, --
That peasant form; and even here,
Rising at every turn for me
Out of the pain and wrong and loss,
On these sad city stones, I see
A wayside cross.



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