Distinctly heard--and some strange spectral thing
Is now uprear'd--and, fix'd against the light
Of the pale lamps, defined upon that sky,
It stands up like a column, straight and high.

I see it all--I know the dusky sign--
A cross on Calvary, which Jews uprear
While Romans watch; and when the dawn shall shine
Pilate, to judge the victim, will appear--
Pass sentence-yield Him up to crucify;
And on that cross the spotless Christ must die.

Dreams, then, are true--for thus my vision ran;
Surely some oracle has been with me,
The gods have chosen me to reveal their plan,
To warn an unjust judge of destiny:
I, slumbering, heard and saw; awake I know,
Christ's coming death, and Pilate's life of woe.

I do not weep for Pilate--who could prove
Regret for him whose cold and crushing sway
No prayer can soften, no appeal can move:
Who tramples hearts as others trample clay,
Yet with a faltering, an uncertain tread,
That might stir up reprisal in the dead.

Forced to sit by his side and see his deeds;
Forced to behold that visage, hour by hour,
In whose gaunt lines the abhorrent gazer reads
A triple lust of gold, and blood, and power;
A soul whom motives fierce, yet abject, urge--
Rome's servile slave, and Judah's tyrant scourge.

How can I love, or mourn, or pity him?
I, who so long my fetter'd hands have wrung;
I, who for grief have wept my eyesight dim;
Because, while life for me was bright and young,
He robb'd my youth--he quench'd my life's fair ray--
He crush'd my mind, and did my freedom slay.

And at this hour-although I be his wife--
He has no more of tenderness from me
Than any other wretch of guilty life;
Less, for I know his household privacy--
I see him as he is--without a screen;
And, by the gods, my soul abhors his mien!

Has he not sought my presence, dyed in blood--
Innocent, righteous blood, shed shamelessly?
And have I not his red salute withstood?
Ay, when, as erst, he plunged all Galilee
In dark bereavement--in affliction sore,
Mingling their very offerings with their gore.

Then came he--in his eyes a serpent-smile,
Upon his lips some false, endearing word,
And through the streets of Salem clang'd the while
His slaughtering, hacking, sacrilegious sw