| |
| “CARRY me across!” | |
| The Syrian heard, rose up, and braced | |
| His huge limbs to the accustomed toil: | |
| “My child, see how the waters boil? | |
| The night-black heavens look angry-faced; | 5 |
| But life is little loss. | |
| |
| “I ’ll carry thee with joy, | |
| If needs be, safe as nestling dove: | |
| For o’er this stream I pilgrims bring | |
| In service to one Christ, a King | 10 |
| Whom I have never seen, yet love.” | |
| “I thank thee,” said the boy. | |
| |
| Cheerful, Arprobus took | |
| The burden on his shoulders great, | |
| And stepped into the waves once more; | 15 |
| When lo! they leaping rise and roar, | |
| And ’neath the little child’s light weight | |
| The tottering giant shook. | |
| |
| “Who art thou?” cried he wild, | |
| Struggling in middle of the ford: | 20 |
| “Boy as thou look’st, it seems to me | |
| The whole world’s load I bear in thee, | |
| Yet—” “For the sake of Christ, thy Lord, | |
| Carry me,” said the child. | |
| |
| No more Arprobus swerved, | 25 |
| But gained the farther bank, and then | |
| A voice cried, “Hence Christopheros be! | |
| For carrying thou hast carried Me, | |
| The King of angels and of men, | |
| The Master thou hast served.” | 30 |
| |
| And in the moonlight blue | |
| The saint saw,—not the wandering boy, | |
| But him who walked upon the sea | |
| And o’er the plains of Galilee, | |
| Till, filled with mystic, awful joy, | 35 |
| His dear Lord Christ he knew. | |
| |
| Oh, little is all loss, | |
| And brief the space ’twixt shore and shore, | |
| If thou, Lord Jesus, on us lay, | |
| Through the deep waters of our way, | 40 |
| The burden that Christopheros bore,— | |
| To carry thee across. | |
| |
