Saint John

The Ages come and go,The Centuries pass as Years;My hair is white as the snow,My feet are weary and slow,The earth is wet with my tearsThe kingdoms crumble, and fallApart, like a ruined wall,Or a bank that is underminedBy a river's ceaseless flow,And leave no trace behind!The world itself is old;The portals of Time unfoldOn hinges of iron, that grateAnd groan with the rust and the weight,Like the hinges of a gateThat hath fallen to decay;But the evil doth not cease;There is war instead of peace,Instead of Love there is hate;And still I must wander and wait,Still I must watch and pray,Not forgetting in whose sight,A thousand years in their flightAre as a single day.

The life of man is a gleamOf light, that comes and goesLike the course of the Holy Stream.The cityless river, that flowsFrom fountains no one knows,Through the Lake of Galilee,Through forests and level lands,Over rocks, and shallows, and sandsOf a wilderness wild and vast,Till it findeth its rest at lastIn the desolate Dead Sea!But alas! alas for meNot yet this rest shall be!

What, then! doth Charity fail?Is Faith of no avail?Is Hope blown out like a lightBy a gust of wind in the night?The clashing of creeds, and the strifeOf the many beliefs, that in vainPerplex man's heart and brain,Are naught but the rustle of leaves,When the breath of God upheavesThe boughs of the Tree of Life,And they subside again!And I remember stillThe words, and from whom they came,Not he that repeateth the name,But he that doeth the will!

And Him evermore I beholdWalking in Galilee,Through the cornfield's waving gold,In hamlet, in wood, and in wold,By the shores of the Beautiful Sea.He toucheth the sightless eyes;Before Him the demons flee;To the dead He sayeth: Arise!To the living: Follow me!And that voice still soundeth onFrom the centuries that are gone,To the centuries that shall be!From all vain pomps and shows,From the pride that overflows,And the false conceits of men;From all the narrow rulesAnd subtleties of Schools,And the craft of tongue and pen;Bewildered in its search,Bewildered with the cry,Lo, here! lo, there, the Church!Poor, sad HumanityThrough all the dust and heatTurns back with bleeding feet,By the weary road it came,Unto the simple thoughtBy the great Master taught,And that remaineth still:Not he that repeateth the name,But he that doeth the will!

O Antioch, my Antioch, my city!Queen of the East! my solace, my delight!The dowry of my sister CleopatraWhen she was wed to Ptolemy, and nowWon back and made more wonderful by me!I love thee, and I long to be once moreAmong the players and the dancing womenWithin thy gates, and bathe in the Orontes,Thy river and mine. O Jason, my High-Priest,For I have made thee so, and thou art mine,Hast thou seen Antioch the Beautiful?

Never, my Lord.

Then hast thou never seenThe wonder of the world. This city of DavidCompared with Antioch is but a village,And its inhabitants compared with GreeksAre mannerless boors.

They are barbarians,And mannerless.

They must be civilized.They must be made to have more gods than one;And goddesses besides.

They shall have more.

They must have hippodromes, and games, and baths,Stage-plays and festivals, and most of allThe Dionysia.

They shall have them all.

By Heracles! but I should like to seeThese Hebrews crowned with ivy, and arrayedIn skins of fawns, with drums and flutes and thyrsi,Revel and riot through the solemn streetsOf their old town. Ha, ha! It makes me merryOnly to think of it!--Thou dost not laugh.

Yea, I laugh inwardly.

The new Greek leavenWorks slowly in this Israelitish dough!Have I not sacked the Temple, and on the altarSet up the statue of Olympian ZeusTo Hellenize it?

Thou hast done all this.

As thou wast Joshua once and now art Jason,And from a Hebrew hast become a Greek,So shall this Hebrew nation be translated,Their very natures and their names be changed,And all be Hellenized.

It shall be done.

Their manners and their laws and way of livingShall all be Greek. They shall unlearn their language,And learn the lovely speech of Antioch.Where hast thou been to-day? Thou comest late.

Playing at discus with the other priestsIn the Gymnasium.

Thou hast done well.There's nothing better for you lazy priestsThan discus-playing with the common people.Now tell me, Jason, what these Hebrews call meWhen they converse together at their games.

Antiochus Epiphanes, my Lord;Antiochus the Illustrious.

O, not that;That is the public cry; I mean the nameThey give me when they talk among themselves,And think that no one listens; what is that?

Antiochus Epimanes, my Lord!

Antiochus the Mad! Ay, that is it.And who hath said it? Who hath set in motionThat sorry jest?

The Seven Sons insaneOf a weird woman, like themselves insane.

I like their courage, but it shall not save them.They shall be made to eat the flesh of swine,Or they shall die. Where are they?

In the dungeonsBeneath this tower.

There let them stay and starve,Till I am ready to make Greeks of them,After my fashion.

They shall stay and starve.--My Lord, the Ambassadors of SamariaAwait thy pleasure.

Why not my displeasure?Ambassadors are tedious. They are menWho work for their own ends, and not for mineThere is no furtherance in them. Let them goTo Apollonius, my governorThere in Samaria, and not trouble me.What do they want?

Only the royal sanctionTo give a name unto a nameless templeUpon Mount Gerizim.

Then bid them enter.This pleases me, and furthers my designs.The occasion is auspicious. Bid them enter.

Approach. Come forward; stand not at the doorWagging your long beards, but demean yourselvesAs doth become Ambassadors. What seek ye?

An audience from the King.

Speak, and be brief.Waste not the time in useless rhetoric.Words are not things.

AMBASSADOR (reading). "To King Antiochus,The God, Epiphanes; a MemorialFrom the Sidonians, who live at Sichem."