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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  John Gould Fletcher

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Everlasting Contradiction

John Gould Fletcher

From “Modern Lamentations”

YESTERDAY I borrowed thirty silver pence

From Judas: he gave them with a grin.

Today, O Christ, I kneel before your cross.

Yesterday the Magdalen came to me and said,

“I am starving.” I answered, “First, to bed.”

Today, O Christ, I kneel before your cross.

Yesterday the Virgin passed sorrowing in the street:

I flung a brick at her. Then, as was meet,

I bore her to the house of Caiphas.

Today, O Christ, I kneel before your cross.

Yesterday Pilate asked me for water: I must go.

He beat me, for the ewer trembled so.

Today, O Christ, I kneel before your cross.

Yesterday, today, tomorrow, I am vile:

You hang there motionless and dead long while—

In your eyes, nothing; on your lips, a smile.

The world is rotten: would ’twould crash and pile

Upon me kneeling yet before your cross!