E Tenebris

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,

      For I am drowning in a stormier sea

      Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee:

The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,

My heart is as some famine-murdered land

      Whence all good things have perished utterly,

      And well I know my soul in Hell must lie

If I this night before God's throne should stand.

'He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,

      Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name

      From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height.'

Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,

      The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,

      The wounded hands, the weary human face.