Even so, O Cross! thine is the victory, Thy roots are fast within our fairest fields; Brightness may emanate in Heaven from Thee: Here Thy dread symbol only shadow yields."
This is ever the first appearance of the Highest when men see it. And, to the far-seeing eyes of the poet, nature must also wear the same aspect. Apollo, when his last word is said, must speak the same language as Christ. Paganism is an elaborate device to do without the Cross. Yet it is ever a futile device, for the Cross is in the very grain and essence of all life; it is absolutely necessary to all permanent and satisfying gladness. Francis Thompson is not the first who has shrunk back from the bitter truth. Many others have found the bitterness of the Cross a lesson too dreadful for their joyous or broken hearts to learn. Who are we that we should judge them? Have we not all rebelled at this bitter aspect of the Highest, and said, in our own language--
"Ah! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?"
Finally we have the answer of Christ to the soul He has chased down after so long a following--
"Strange, piteous, futile thing! Wherefore should any set thee love apart? Seeing none but I makes much of nought (He said), And human love needs human meriting: How hast thou merited-- Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot? Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, Save Me, save only Me? All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou mightst seek it in My arms. All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp my hand, and come."
And the poem ends upon the patter of the little feet--
"Halts by me that footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou drovest love from thee, who drovest Me."
It is a perfect ending for this very wonderful song of life, and it tells the old and constantly repeated story of the victory of the Cross over the pagan gods. It is through pain and not through indulgence that the ideals gain for themselves eternal life. Until the soul has been transformed and strengthened by pain, its attempt to fulfil itself and be at peace in a pagan settlement on the green earth must ever be in vain. And in our hearts we all know this quite well. We really desire the Highest, and yet we flee in terror from it always, until the day of the wise surrender. This is perhaps the greatest of all our paradoxes and contradictions.