Jacob's Well

The sun is hot; and the dry east-wind blowingFills all the air with dust. The birds are silent;Even the little fieldfares in the cornNo longer twitter; only the grasshoppersSing their incessant song of sun and summer.I wonder who those strangers were I metGoing into the city? GalileansThey seemed to me in speaking, when they askedThe short way to the market-place. PerhapsThey are fishermen from the lake; or travellers,Looking to find the inn. And here is some oneSitting beside the well; another stranger;A Galilean also by his looks.What can so many Jews be doing hereTogether in Samaria? Are they goingUp to Jerusalem to the Passover?Our Passover is better here at Sychem,For here is Ebal; here is Gerizim,The mountain where our father AbrahamWent up to offer Isaac; here the tombOf Joseph,--for they brought his bones EgyptAnd buried them in this land, and it is holy.

CHRISTUS.Give me to drink.

How can it be that thou,Being a Jew, askest to drink of meWhich am a woman of Samaria?You Jews despise us; have no dealings with us;Make us a byword; call us in derisionThe silly folk of Sychar. Sir, how is itThou askest drink of me?

CHRISTUS.If thou hadst knownThe gift of God, and who it is that sayethGive me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him;He would have given thee the living water.

Sir, thou hast naught to draw with, and the wellIs deep! Whence hast thou living water?Say, art thou greater than our father Jacob,Which gave this well to us, and drank thereofHimself, and all his children and his cattle?

CHRISTUS.Ah, whosoever drinketh of this waterShall thirst again; but whosoever drinkethThe water I shall give him shall not thirstForevermore, for it shall be within himA well of living water, springing upInto life everlasting.

Every dayI must go to and fro, in heat and cold,And I am weary. Give me of this water,That I may thirst not, nor come here to draw.

CHRISTUS.Go call thy husband, woman, and come hither.

I have no husband, Sir.

CHRISTUS.Thou hast well saidI have no husband. Thou hast had five husbands;And he whom now thou hast is not thy husband.

Surely thou art a Prophet, for thou readestThe hidden things of life! Our fathers worshippedUpon this mountain Gerizim; and ye sayThe only place in which men ought to worshipIs at Jerusalem.

CHRISTUS.Believe me, woman,The hour is coming, when ye neither shallUpon this mount, nor at Jerusalem,Worship the Father; for the hour is coming,And is now come, when the true worshippersShall worship the Father in spirit and in truth!The Father seeketh such to worship Him.God is a spirit; and they that worship HimMust worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Master, I know that the Messiah cometh,Which is called Christ; and he will tell us all things.

CHRISTUS.I that speak unto thee am He!

THE DISCIPLES, returning.Behold,The Master sitting by the well, and talkingWith a Samaritan woman! With a womanOf Sychar, the silly people, always boastingOf their Mount Ebal, and Mount Gerizim,Their Everlasting Mountain, which they thinkHigher and holier than our Mount Moriah!Why, once upon the Feast of the New Moon,When our great Sanhedrim of JerusalemHad all its watch-fires kindled on the hillsTo warn the distant villages, these peopleLighted up others to mislead the Jews,And make a mockery of their festival!See, she has left the Master; and is runningBack to the city!

Oh, come see a manWho hath told me all things that I ever did!Say, is not this the Christ?

Lo, Master, hereIs food, that we have brought thee from the city.We pray thee eat it.

CHRISTUS.I have food to eatYe know not of.

THE DISCIPLES, to each other.Hath any man been here,And brought Him aught to eat, while we were gone?

CHRISTUS.The food I speak of is to do the willOf Him that sent me, and to finish his work.Do ye not say, Lo! there are yet four monthsAnd cometh, harvest? I say unto you,Lift up your eyes, and look upon the fields,For they are white already unto harvest!