Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
Gethsemane
By John Keble (1792–1866)T
That felt Thee kneeling,—touched thy prostrate brow:
One Angel knows it. O, might prayer avail
To win that knowledge; sure each holy vow
Less quickly from the unstable soul would fade,
Offered where Christ in agony was laid.
That from his aching brow by moonlight fell,
Over the mournful joy our thoughts would brood,
Till they had framed within a guardian spell
To chase repining fancies, as they rise,
Like birds of evil wing, to mar our sacrifice.
Else wherefore, when the bitter waves o’erflow,
Miss we the light, Gethsemane, that streams
From thy dear name, where in his page of woe
It shines, a pale kind star in winter’s sky?
Who vainly reads it there, in vain had seen him die.