Poem by Alfred Bruce Douglas

Before a Crucifix

What hurts Thee most? The rods? the thorns? the nails?
The crooked wounds that jag Thy bleeding knees?
(Can ever plummet sound such mysteries?)
It is perchance the thirst that most prevails
Against Thy stricken flesh, Thy spirit quails
Most at the gall-soaked sponge, the bitter seas
O'erflow with this? "Nay, it is none of these?''
Lord, Lord, reveal it then ere mercy fails.

Is it Thy Mother's anguish? "Search thine heart.
Didst thou not pray to taste the worst with Me,
O thou of little faith». Incarnate Word,
Lord of my soul, I know, it is the part
That Judas played ; this have I shared with Thee
(By wife, child, friend betrayed). "Thy prayer was heard."

1. To L —
2. The Ballad of Saint Vitus
3. Not All the Singers of a Thousand Years
4. Night Coming into a Garden
5. The Green River

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