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CALVARY

Through many a lovely landscape
My pilgrim-staff I’ve brought,
From many a rocky em’nence
My gaze the valley sought.
But far above all mountains
I’ve ever seen, give me
The quiet, lonely hillock,
The Mount of Calvary.

It towers not with forehead
Ice-crowned into the clouds.
No sunny Alpine glacier
Its shoulders bare enshrouds.
But ne’er in all my wanderings
Seemed heaven so near to me,
And earth so lost in distance,
As there on Calvary.

On its bald summit never
A crown of forest stood—
No gently waving oak-tops,
No precious cedar-wood.
But all the royal cedars
That Hermon once did see
Their lofty heads are bowing
Before Mount Calvary.

Go thither, earth-worn pilgrim,
There seek thy rest at last;
And at the feet of Jesus
Thy heavy burdens cast.
Then come and praise with gladness—
How much was done for thee!
Know this: the road to glory
Leads over Calvary.
—From the German.

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— April 15, 1892 —