Poems (Rossetti, 1901)/"The Love of Christ which passeth Knowledge"

by Christina Georgina Rossetti

"THE LOVE OF CHRIST WHICH PASSETH KNOWLEDGE."

I BORE with thee long weary days and nights,
 Through many pangs of heart, through many tears;
I bore with thee, thy hardness, coldness, slights,
  For three-and-thirty years.

Who else had dared for thee what I have dared?
 I plunged the depth most deep from bliss above;
I not My flesh, I not My spirit spared:
  Give thou Me love for love.

For thee I thirsted in the daily drouth,
 For thee I trembled in the nightly frost:
Much sweeter thou than honey to My mouth:
  Why wilt thou still be lost?

I bore thee on My shoulders and rejoiced:
 Men only marked upon My shoulders borne
The branding cross; and shouted hungry-voiced,
  Or wagged their heads in scorn.

Thee did nails grave upon My hands, thy name
 Did thorns for frontlets stamp between Mine eyes:
I, Holy One, put on thy guilt and shame;
  I, God, Priest, Sacrifice.

A thief upon My right hand and My left;
 Six hours alone, athirst, in misery:
At length in death one smote My heart and cleft
  A hiding-place for thee.

Nailed to the racking cross, than bed of down
 More dear, whereon to stretch Myself and sleep:
So did I win a kingdom,—share My crown;
  A harvest.—come and reap.