He was the Christ

Our laws, the wisest, haste to die:
Our creeds like idle tales are told:
The loving heart, the lips that bless,
The shadowy centuries make not old.

This life that ever runs to pain,
He felt it all: its rise and glow,
The bitterness, the ache, the toil,
All that the moving myriads know.

He drew no sword; but all men’s swords
Grew redder in the blood-red years:
– Only the hope, that would not die,
Shone tremulous in a world of tears.

The white mist dances in our eyes;
But still, in every age and land,
His heart beats for the little child,
He writes of mercy on the sand.

– John Shaw Neilson