CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

A DEATH IN THE DESERT 579
"Remember all I It is not much to say.
"What if the truth broke on me from above
"As once and oft-times? Such might hap again:
"Doubtlessly He might stand in presence here.
"With head wool-white, eyes flame, and feet like brass,
"The sword and the seven stars, as I have seen-
" I who now shudder only and surmise
'" How did your brother bear that sight and live?'
" If I live yet, it is for good, more love
"Through me to men: be nought but ashes here
"That keep awhile my semblance, who was John,­
"Still, when they scatter, there is left on earth
"No one alive who knew (consider this I)
" -Saw with his eyes and handled with his hands
"That which was from the first, the Word of Life.
" How will it be when none more saith ' I saw' ?
"Such ever was love's way: to rise, it stoops.
"Since I, whom Christ's mouth taught, was bidden tcach,
" I went, for many years, about the world,
"Saying 'It was so; so I heard and saw,'
"Speaking as the case asked: and men believed.
" Afterward came the message to myself
" In Patmos isle; I was not bidden teach,
"But simply listen, take a book and write,
"Nor set down other than the given word,
"With nothing left to my arbitrament
"To choose or change: I wrotc, and men belicyed.
"Then, for my time grew brief, no message more.
"No call to write again, I found a way,
"And, reasoning from my knowledge, merely taught
"Men sbould, for love's sake, in love's strength believe'
"Or I would pen a letter to a friend '
"And urge the same as friend, nor less nor more:
"Friends said I reasoned rigbtly, and believed.
"But at the last, why, I seemed left alive
"Like a sea-jelly weak on Patmos strand,
"To tell dry sea-beach gazers bow I fared
"When their was mid-sea, and the mighty things:
"Left to repeat, ' I saw, I heard, I knew,'
" And go all over the old ground again, .'
"With An tichrist already in the world,
" And many Antichrists, who answered prompt
", Am I not Jasper as thyself art John?
" • Nay, young, whereas through age thou mayest forget:
", \Vherefore, explain, or how shall we believe 'I'
" I never thought to call down fire on such,
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