Pebbles and Shells (Hawkes collection)/Gethsemane

by Clarence Hawkes

GETHSEMANE

Ye proud nobility who walk the earth In unconcern, where every form of want, Of sin and crime and hunger grim and gauntStand specter-like beside the poor man's hearth,And rob humanity of joy and mirth, Where God's free sunlight never deigns to slant Across the floor of dens where demons hauntThe human soul—O put aside your birth, Your heritage of ease, and for one day Come forth with me to life's Gethsemane to pray;Take all this heavy load, the whole world's rue Upon yourselves, as Jesus did of old,— Then be your hearts like icebergs frigid cold,They needs must melt with pity through and through.