Poems (Kennedy)/That Middle Cross
THAT MIDDLE CROSS ON CALVARY
IT still is there, though time has run From century to century—That milestone of the flying years— That lowly Mount of Calvary.
Dead empires with their weedy crowns Have crumbled into voiceless dust,And scepters that once ruled the world Are heaps of brown corroding rust;
In Egypt Memnon sings no more— We only guess the sun-waked tones;We tread on buried Babylon, And seek in vain Palmyra's stones;
The clustered domes of Nineveh Are shards upon the desert sand,And Troy and all her mighty hosts Are legends of an unknown land.
But—unforgotten through the drift Of ages dim with mystery,That lowly Mountain keeps the trail That leads to Immortality.
The cities that we know today May sink beneath the sands of time,The history which now we write Some day may be forgotten rhyme.
But that low Mount will still abide; The hearts of men will not forget—High altar of a ransomed world Where tapers of our faith are set.
They'll shine, those holy altar lights, And by their steadfast gleams we'll see—Through war and peace and life and death— That middle cross on Calvary.