The sacred rose in bloom,
Red rushing river of blood
Ripe apple red on my speartip
The blood, the blood, the blood on my spear
Entering the right side -- the wrong side gashed,
Blood gushing out from inside one Pilate forty lashed.
Was I the one who thrashed?
I had know from fierce fought battles
Physicians err right to the heart,
So I lanced him there; his pain I could not bear.
For I remembered we had met on the hot, the burning dusty road.
I had played him for the toad, although he the most was not.
"Give me half your cloak," I had sneered from my mount.
Then he gave me the whole thing; of that, I could not account:
That common lowly Hebrew such like that would do
For such as me, a mercenary.
Pack picked up, down the way was carried.
A mile further down the road still bending from the load,
Plodding, sweating all the while, he parted with a silent smile.
Day after day the smile tended to stay
And seemed to change my ways.
Yard by yard softening the hard toil of my day for so little pay.
Yet today, but today, why today?
What a day! A cloudy day even. Why should he end this way?
To him I'll give the vine, as his blood is my wine,
Soak the sponge in the bitter vetch;
Oil of assassins, oil of poppies, and that of the flytrap toadstool
For a sleep stronger than mortal. I wink as he drinks.
Bystanding Pharisees and Centurions
Think this gaunt lone soul has relieved the lost dolor.
Did he really die alone? We'll see when we roll away the stone.