Bad Days
When Passion week started and
Came down to the city, that
Hosannahs burst out at his
And palm leaves were strewn in his way.
But days grow more stern and more stormy.
No love can men's hardness unbend;
Their brows are contemptuously frowning,
And now comes the postscript, the end.
Grey, leaden and heavy, the
Were pressing on treetops and roofs.
The Pharisees, fawning like foxes,
Were secretly searching for proofs.
The lords of the Temple let
Pass judgement, and those who at
Had fervently followed and hailed him,
Now all just as zealously cursed.
The crowd on the neighbouring
Was looking inside through the gate.
They jostled, intent on the outcome,
Bewildered and willing to wait.
And whispers and rumours were creeping,
Repeating the dominant theme.
The flight into Egypt, his
Already seemed faint as a dream.
And Jesus remembered the desert,
The days in the wilderness spent,
The tempting with power by Satan,
That lofty, majestic descent.
He thought of the wedding at Cana,
The feast and the miracles;
How once he had walked on the
Through mist to a boat, as on land;
The beggarly crowd in a hovel,
The cellar to which he was led;
How, started, the candle-flame guttered,
When Lazarus rose from the dead…
