"the Sword" by Sheldon Vanauken
Yes, Mark was posted to the Tenth that year.
The day we got there priests contrived to bring
This 'god' to death, and mobs that made me cling
To Mark surged round us, all one mocking jeer.
No omen warned me when Mark led me near
The yelling street that I should be implored
By God to wear my girlhood like a sword
So edged with mercy men would freeze in fear.
Mark's armor made the crowd draw back a space.
Just there beneath his cross the god limped by.
I saw his eyes and rushed into the street
Through sudden stillness and wiped his face.
'My child,' he said and staggered on to die.
- My girlhood lay in fragments at my feet.
"Advent" by Sheldon Vanauken
Two thousand years go by while on the Cross
Our Lord is suffering still - there is no end
Of pain: the spear pierces, nails rend -
And we below with Mary weep our loss.
The chilling edge of night crawls round the earth;
At every second of the centuries
The dark comes somewhere down, with dreadful ease
Slaying the sun, denying light's rebirth.
But if the agony and death go on,
Our Lady's tears, our Lord's most mortal cry,
So, too, the timeless lovely birth again -
And the forsaken tomb. Today: the dawn
That never ended and can never die
In breaking glory ushers in the slain.
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