10 Best Famous Nazarene Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Nazarene poems. This is a select list of the best famous Nazarene poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Nazarene poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of nazarene poems.

• All Famous Nazarene Poems

 Part One


The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry. 

My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty. 

Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct the stranger through the dark. 

I do all these things because I live in them; and if destiny should tie my hands and prevent me from so doing, then death would be my only desire. For I am a poet, and if I cannot give, I shall refuse to receive. 

Humanity rages like a tempest, but I sigh in silence for I know the storm must pass away while a sigh goes to God. 

Human kinds cling to earthly things, but I seek ever to embrace the torch of love so it will purify me by its fire and sear inhumanity from my heart. 

Substantial things deaden a man without suffering; love awakens him with enlivening pains. 

Humans are divided into different clans and tribes, and belong to countries and towns. But I find myself a stranger to all communities and belong to no settlement. The universe is my country and the human family is my tribe. 

Men are weak, and it is sad that they divide amongst themselves. The world is narrow and it is unwise to cleave it into kingdoms, empires, and provinces. 

Human kinds unite themselves one to destroy the temples of the soul, and they join hands to build edifices for earthly bodies. I stand alone listening to the voice of hope in my deep self saying, "As love enlivens a man's heart with pain, so ignorance teaches him the way of knowledge." Pain and ignorance lead to great joy and knowledge because the Supreme Being has created nothing vain under the sun. 



Part Two


I have a yearning for my beautiful country, and I love its people because of their misery. But if my people rose, stimulated by plunder and motivated by what they call "patriotic spirit" to murder, and invaded my neighbor's country, then upon the committing of any human atrocity I would hate my people and my country. 

I sing the praise of my birthplace and long to see the home of my children; but if the people in that home refused to shelter and feed the needy wayfarer, I would convert my praise into anger and my longing to forgetfulness. My inner voice would say, "The house that does not comfort the need is worthy of naught by destruction." 

I love my native village with some of my love for my country; and I love my country with part of my love for the earth, all of which is my country; and I love the earth will all of myself because it is the haven of humanity, the manifest spirit of God. 

Humanity is the spirit of the Supreme Being on earth, and that humanity is standing amidst ruins, hiding its nakedness behind tattered rags, shedding tears upon hollow cheeks, and calling for its children with pitiful voice. But the children are busy singing their clan's anthem; they are busy sharpening the swords and cannot hear the cry of their mothers. 

Humanity appeals to its people but they listen not. Were one to listen, and console a mother by wiping her tears, other would say, "He is weak, affected by sentiment." 

Humanity is the spirit of the Supreme Being on earth, and that Supreme Being preaches love and good-will. But the people ridicule such teachings. The Nazarene Jesus listened, and crucifixion was his lot; Socrates heard the voice and followed it, and he too fell victim in body. The followers of The Nazarene and Socrates are the followers of Deity, and since people will not kill them, they deride them, saying, "Ridicule is more bitter than killing." 

Jerusalem could not kill The Nazarene, nor Athens Socrates; they are living yet and shall live eternally. Ridicule cannot triumph over the followers of Deity. They live and grow forever. 



Part Three


Thou art my brother because you are a human, and we both are sons of one Holy Spirit; we are equal and made of the same earth. 

You are here as my companion along the path of life, and my aid in understanding the meaning of hidden Truth. You are a human, and, that fact sufficing, I love you as a brother. You may speak of me as you choose, for Tomorrow shall take you away and will use your talk as evidence for his judgment, and you shall receive justice. 

You may deprive me of whatever I possess, for my greed instigated the amassing of wealth and you are entitled to my lot if it will satisfy you. 

You may do unto me whatever you wish, but you shall not be able to touch my Truth. 

You may shed my blood and burn my body, but you cannot kill or hurt my spirit. 

You may tie my hands with chains and my feet with shackles, and put me in the dark prison, but who shall not enslave my thinking, for it is free, like the breeze in the spacious sky. 

You are my brother and I love you. I love you worshipping in your church, kneeling in your temple, and praying in your mosque. You and I and all are children of one religion, for the varied paths of religion are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being, extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, anxious to receive all. 

I love you for your Truth, derived from your knowledge; that Truth which I cannot see because of my ignorance. But I respect it as a divine thing, for it is the deed of the spirit. Your Truth shall meet my Truth in the coming world and blend together like the fragrance of flowers and becoming one whole and eternal Truth, perpetuating and living in the eternity of Love and Beauty. 

I love you because you are weak before the strong oppressor, and poor before the greedy rich. For these reasons I shed tears and comfort you; and from behind my tears I see you embraced in the arms of Justice, smiling and forgiving your persecutors. You are my brother and I love you. 



Part Four


You are my brother, but why are you quarreling with me? Why do you invade my country and try to subjugate me for the sake of pleasing those who are seeking glory and authority? 

Why do you leave your wife and children and follow Death to the distant land for the sake of those who buy glory with your blood, and high honor with your mother's tears? 

Is it an honor for a man to kill his brother man? If you deem it an honor, let it be an act of worship, and erect a temple to Cain who slew his brother Abel. 

Is self-preservation the first law of Nature? Why, then, does Greed urge you to self-sacrifice in order only to achieve his aim in hurting your brothers? Beware, my brother, of the leader who says, "Love of existence obliges us to deprive the people of their rights!" I say unto you but this: protecting others' rights is the noblest and most beautiful human act; if my existence requires that I kill others, then death is more honorable to me, and if I cannot find someone to kill me for the protection of my honor, I will not hesitate to take my life by my own hands for the sake of Eternity before Eternity comes. 

Selfishness, my brother, is the cause of blind superiority, and superiority creates clanship, and clanship creates authority which leads to discord and subjugation. 

The soul believes in the power of knowledge and justice over dark ignorance; it denies the authority that supplies the swords to defend and strengthen ignorance and oppression - that authority which destroyed Babylon and shook the foundation of Jerusalem and left Rome in ruins. It is that which made people call criminals great mean; made writers respect their names; made historians relate the stories of their inhumanity in manner of praise. 

The only authority I obey is the knowledge of guarding and acquiescing in the Natural Law of Justice. 

What justice does authority display when it kills the killer? When it imprisons the robber? When it descends on a neighborhood country and slays its people? What does justice think of the authority under which a killer punishes the one who kills, and a thief sentences the one who steals? 

You are my brother, and I love you; and Love is justice with its full intensity and dignity. If justice did not support my love for you, regardless of your tribe and community, I would be a deceiver concealing the ugliness of selfishness behind the outer garment of pure love. 



Conclusion


My soul is my friend who consoles me in misery and distress of life. He who does not befriend his soul is an enemy of humanity, and he who does not find human guidance within himself will perish desperately. Life emerges from within, and derives not from environs. 

I came to say a word and I shall say it now. But if death prevents its uttering, it will be said tomorrow, for tomorrow never leaves a secret in the book of eternity.

I came to live in the glory of love and the light of beauty, which are the reflections of God. I am here living, and the people are unable to exile me from the domain of life for they know I will live in death. If they pluck my eyes I will hearken to the murmers of love and the songs of beauty.

If they close my ears I will enjoy the touch of the breeze mixed with the incebse of love and the fragrance of beauty.

If they place me in a vacuum, I will live together with my soul, the child of love and beauty.

I came here to be for all and with all, and what I do today in my solitude will be echoed by tomorrow to the people.

What I say now with one heart will be said tomorrow by many hearts

 Lough, vessel, plough the British main,
Seek the free ocean's wider plain; 
Leave English scenes and English skies,
Unbind, dissever English ties; 
Bear me to climes remote and strange, 
Where altered life, fast-following change,
Hot action, never-ceasing toil, 
Shall stir, turn, dig, the spirit's soil; 
Fresh roots shall plant, fresh seed shall sow, 
Till a new garden there shall grow, 
Cleared of the weeds that fill it now,­ 
Mere human love, mere selfish yearning, 
Which, cherished, would arrest me yet. 
I grasp the plough, there's no returning, 
Let me, then, struggle to forget. 

But England's shores are yet in view, 
And England's skies of tender blue 
Are arched above her guardian sea. 
I cannot yet Remembrance flee; 
I must again, then, firmly face 
That task of anguish, to retrace. 
Wedded to home­I home forsake, 
Fearful of change­I changes make; 
Too fond of ease­I plunge in toil; 
Lover of calm­I seek turmoil: 
Nature and hostile Destiny 
Stir in my heart a conflict wild; 
And long and fierce the war will be 
Ere duty both has reconciled. 

What other tie yet holds me fast
To the divorced, abandoned past?
Smouldering, on my heart's altar lies
The fire of some great sacrifice,
Not yet half quenched. The sacred steel
But lately struck my carnal will, 
My life-long hope, first joy and last, 
What I loved well, and clung to fast; 
What I wished wildly to retain, 
What I renounced with soul-felt pain; 
What­when I saw it, axe-struck, perish­ 
Left me no joy on earth to cherish; 
A man bereft­yet sternly now 
I do confirm that Jephtha vow: 
Shall I retract, or fear, or flee ? 
Did Christ, when rose the fatal tree 
Before him, on Mount Calvary ? 
'Twas a long fight, hard fought, but won, 
And what I did was justly done. 

Yet, Helen ! from thy love I turned,
When my heart most for thy heart burned;
I dared thy tears, I dared thy scorn­
Easier the death-pang had been borne.
Helen ! thou mightst not go with me,
I could not­dared not stay for thee !
I heard, afar, in bonds complain
The savage from beyond the main;
And that wild sound rose o'er the cry
Wrung out by passion's agony;
And even when, with the bitterest tear
I ever shed, mine eyes were dim,
Still, with the spirit's vision clear,
I saw Hell's empire, vast and grim,
Spread on each Indian river's shore,
Each realm of Asia covering o'er. 

There the weak, trampled by the strong,
Live but to suffer­hopeless die; 
There pagan-priests, whose creed is Wrong, 
Extortion, Lust, and Cruelty, 
Crush our lost race­and brimming fill 
The bitter cup of human ill; 
And I­who have the healing creed, 
The faith benign of Mary's Son; 
Shall I behold my brother's need 
And selfishly to aid him shun ? 
I­who upon my mother's knees, 
In childhood, read Christ's written word, 
Received his legacy of peace, 
His holy rule of action heard; 
I­in whose heart the sacred sense 
Of Jesus' love was early felt; 
Of his pure full benevolence, 
His pitying tenderness for guilt; 
His shepherd-care for wandering sheep, 
For all weak, sorrowing, trembling things, 
His mercy vast, his passion deep 
Of anguish for man's sufferings; 
I­schooled from childhood in such lore­ 
Dared I draw back or hesitate, 
When called to heal the sickness sore 
Of those far off and desolate ? 
Dark, in the realm and shades of Death, 
Nations and tribes and empires lie, 
But even to them the light of Faith 
Is breaking on their sombre sky: 
And be it mine to bid them raise 
Their drooped heads to the kindling scene, 
And know and hail the sunrise blaze 
Which heralds Christ the Nazarene. 
I know how Hell the veil will spread 
Over their brows and filmy eyes, 
And earthward crush the lifted head 
That would look up and seek the skies; 
I know what war the fiend will wage 
Against that soldier of the cross, 
Who comes to dare his demon-rage, 
And work his kingdom shame and loss. 
Yes, hard and terrible the toil 
Of him who steps on foreign soil, 
Resolved to plant the gospel vine, 
Where tyrants rule and slaves repine; 
Eager to lift Religion's light 
Where thickest shades of mental night 
Screen the false god and fiendish rite; 
Reckless that missionary blood, 
Shed in wild wilderness and wood, 
Has left, upon the unblest air, 
The man's deep moan­the martyr's prayer. 
I know my lot­I only ask 
Power to fulfil the glorious task; 
Willing the spirit, may the flesh 
Strength for the day receive afresh. 
May burning sun or deadly wind 
Prevail not o'er an earnest mind; 
May torments strange or direst death
Nor trample truth, nor baffle faith.
Though such blood-drops should fall from me
As fell in old Gethsemane,
Welcome the anguish, so it gave
More strength to work­more skill to save.
And, oh ! if brief must be my time,
If hostile hand or fatal clime
Cut short my course­still o'er my grave, 
Lord, may thy harvest whitening wave. 
So I the culture may begin,
Let others thrust the sickle in;
If but the seed will faster grow,
May my blood water what I sow ! 

What ! have I ever trembling stood,
And feared to give to God that blood ?
What ! has the coward love of life
Made me shrink from the righteous strife ?
Have human passions, human fears
Severed me from those Pioneers,
Whose task is to march first, and trace
Paths for the progress of our race ?
It has been so; but grant me, Lord,
Now to stand steadfast by thy word !
Protected by salvation's helm,
Shielded by faith­with truth begirt,
To smile when trials seek to whelm
And stand 'mid testing fires unhurt ! 
Hurling hell's strongest bulwarks down, 
Even when the last pang thrills my breast, 
When Death bestows the Martyr's crown, 
And calls me into Jesus' rest. 
Then for my ultimate reward­ 
Then for the world-rejoicing word­ 
The voice from Father­Spirit­Son: 
" Servant of God, well hast thou done !"

 (ROOSEVELT)

He turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion … And the men of the city said unto him, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?—Judges, 14.


The palms of Mammon have disowned 
The gift of our complacency; 
The bells of ages have intoned 
Again their rhythmic irony; 
And from the shadow, suddenly,
’Mid echoes of decrepit rage, 
The seer of our necessity 
Confronts a Tyrian heritage. 

Equipped with unobscured intent 
He smiles with lions at the gate,
Acknowledging the compliment 
Like one familiar with his fate; 
The lions, having time to wait, 
Perceive a small cloud in the skies, 
Whereon they look, disconsolate,
With scared, reactionary eyes. 

A shadow falls upon the land,— 
They sniff, and they are like to roar; 
For they will never understand 
What they have never seen before.
They march in order to the door, 
Not knowing the best thing to seek, 
Nor caring if the gods restore 
The lost composite of the Greek. 

The shadow fades, the light arrives,
And ills that were concealed are seen; 
The combs of long-defended hives 
Now drip dishonored and unclean; 
No Nazarite or Nazarene 
Compels our questioning to prove
The difference that is between 
Dead lions—or the sweet thereof. 

But not for lions, live or dead, 
Except as we are all as one, 
Is he the world’s accredited
Revealer of what we have done; 
What You and I and Anderson 
Are still to do is his reward; 
If we go back when he is gone— 
There is an Angel with a Sword.

He cannot close again the doors 
That now are shattered for our sake; 
He cannot answer for the floors 
We crowd on, or for walls that shake; 
He cannot wholly undertake
The cure of our immunity; 
He cannot hold the stars, or make 
Of seven years a century. 

So Time will give us what we earn 
Who flaunt the handful for the whole,
And leave us all that we may learn 
Who read the surface for the soul; 
And we’ll be steering to the goal, 
For we have said so to our sons: 
When we who ride can pay the toll,
Time humors the far-seeing ones. 

Down to our nose’s very end 
We see, and are invincible,— 
Too vigilant to comprehend 
The scope of what we cannot sell;
But while we seem to know as well 
As we know dollars, or our skins, 
The Titan may not always tell 
Just where the boundary begins.

 Here, down between the dusty trees,
At this lank edge of haggard wood,
Women with labour-loosened knees,
With gaunt backs bowed by servitude,
Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare
Forth with souls easier for the prayer.

The suns have branded black, the rains
Striped grey this piteous God of theirs;
The face is full of prayers and pains,
To which they bring their pains and prayers;
Lean limbs that shew the labouring bones,
And ghastly mouth that gapes and groans.

God of this grievous people, wrought
After the likeness of their race,
By faces like thine own besought,
Thine own blind helpless eyeless face,
I too, that have nor tongue nor knee
For prayer, I have a word to thee.

It was for this then, that thy speech
Was blown about the world in flame
And men's souls shot up out of reach
Of fear or lust or thwarting shame -
That thy faith over souls should pass
As sea-winds burning the grey grass?

It was for this, that prayers like these
Should spend themselves about thy feet,
And with hard overlaboured knees
Kneeling, these slaves of men should beat
Bosoms too lean to suckle sons
And fruitless as their orisons?

It was for this, that men should make
Thy name a fetter on men's necks,
Poor men's made poorer for thy sake,
And women's withered out of sex?
It was for this, that slaves should be,
Thy word was passed to set men free?

The nineteenth wave of the ages rolls
Now deathward since thy death and birth.
Hast thou fed full men's starved-out souls?
Hast thou brought freedom upon earth?
Or are there less oppressions done
In this wild world under the sun?

Nay, if indeed thou be not dead,
Before thy terrene shrine be shaken,
Look down, turn usward, bow thine head;
O thou that wast of God forsaken,
Look on thine household here, and see
These that have not forsaken thee.

Thy faith is fire upon their lips,
Thy kingdom golden in their hands;
They scourge us with thy words for whips,
They brand us with thy words for brands;
The thirst that made thy dry throat shrink
To their moist mouths commends the drink.

The toothed thorns that bit thy brows
Lighten the weight of gold on theirs;
Thy nakedness enrobes thy spouse
With the soft sanguine stuff she wears
Whose old limbs use for ointment yet
Thine agony and bloody sweat.

The blinding buffets on thine head
On their crowned heads confirm the crown;
Thy scourging dyes their raiment red,
And with thy bands they fasten down
For burial in the blood-bought field
The nations by thy stripes unhealed.

With iron for thy linen bands
And unclean cloths for winding-sheet
They bind the people's nail-pierced hands,
They hide the people's nail-pierced feet;
And what man or what angel known
Shall roll back the sepulchral stone?

But these have not the rich man's grave
To sleep in when their pain is done.
These were not fit for God to save.
As naked hell-fire is the sun
In their eyes living, and when dead
These have not where to lay their head.

They have no tomb to dig, and hide;
Earth is not theirs, that they should sleep.
On all these tombless crucified
No lovers' eyes have time to weep.
So still, for all man's tears and creeds,
The sacred body hangs and bleeds.

Through the left hand a nail is driven,
Faith, and another through the right,
Forged in the fires of hell and heaven,
Fear that puts out the eye of light:
And the feet soiled and scarred and pale
Are pierced with falsehood for a nail.

And priests against the mouth divine
Push their sponge full of poison yet
And bitter blood for myrrh and wine,
And on the same reed is it set
Wherewith before they buffeted
The people's disanointed head.

O sacred head, O desecrate,
O labour-wounded feet and hands,
O blood poured forth in pledge to fate
Of nameless lives in divers lands,
O slain and spent and sacrificed
People, the grey-grown speechless Christ!

Is there a gospel in the red
Old witness of thy wide-mouthed wounds?
From thy blind stricken tongueless head
What desolate evangel sounds
A hopeless note of hope deferred?
What word, if there be any word?

O son of man, beneath man's feet
Cast down, O common face of man
Whereon all blows and buffets meet,
O royal, O republican
Face of the people bruised and dumb
And longing till thy kingdom come!

The soldiers and the high priests part
Thy vesture: all thy days are priced,
And all the nights that eat thine heart.
And that one seamless coat of Christ,
The freedom of the natural soul,
They cast their lots for to keep whole.

No fragment of it save the name
They leave thee for a crown of scorns
Wherewith to mock thy naked shame
And forehead bitten through with thorns
And, marked with sanguine sweat and tears,
The stripes of eighteen hundred years

And we seek yet if God or man
Can loosen thee as Lazarus,
Bid thee rise up republican
And save thyself and all of us;
But no disciple's tongue can say
When thou shalt take our sins away.

And mouldering now and hoar with moss
Between us and the sunlight swings
The phantom of a Christless cross
Shadowing the sheltered heads of kings
And making with its moving shade
The souls of harmless men afraid.

It creaks and rocks to left and right
Consumed of rottenness and rust,
Worm-eaten of the worms of night,
Dead as their spirits who put trust,
Round its base muttering as they sit,
In the time-cankered name of it.

Thou, in the day that breaks thy prison,
People, though these men take thy name,
And hail and hymn thee rearisen,
Who made songs erewhile of thy shame,
Give thou not ear; for these are they
Whose good day was thine evil day.

Set not thine hand unto their cross.
Give not thy soul up sacrificed.
Change not the gold of faith for dross
Of Christian creeds that spit on Christ.
Let not thy tree of freedom be
Regrafted from that rotting tree.

This dead God here against my face
Hath help for no man; who hath seen
The good works of it, or such grace
As thy grace in it, Nazarene,
As that from thy live lips which ran
For man's sake, O thou son of man?

The tree of faith ingraffed by priests
Puts its foul foliage out above thee,
And round it feed man-eating beasts
Because of whom we dare not love thee;
Though hearts reach back and memories ache,
We cannot praise thee for their sake.

O hidden face of man, whereover
The years have woven a viewless veil,
If thou wast verily man's lover,
What did thy love or blood avail?
Thy blood the priests make poison of,
And in gold shekels coin thy love.

So when our souls look back to thee
They sicken, seeing against thy side,
Too foul to speak of or to see,
The leprous likeness of a bride,
Whose kissing lips through his lips grown
Leave their God rotten to the bone.

When we would see thee man, and know
What heart thou hadst toward men indeed,
Lo, thy blood-blackened altars; lo,
The lips of priests that pray and feed
While their own hell's worm curls and licks
The poison of the crucifix.

Thou bad'st let children come to thee;
What children now but curses come?
What manhood in that God can be
Who sees their worship, and is dumb?
No soul that lived, loved, wrought, and died,
Is this their carrion crucified.

Nay, if their God and thou be one,
If thou and this thing be the same,
Thou shouldst not look upon the sun;
The sun grows haggard at thy name.
Come down, be done with, cease, give o'er;
Hide thyself, strive not, be no more.

 Proud of my broken heart, since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,

Proud of my night, since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.

Thou can'st not boast, like Jesus, drunken without companion
Was the strong cup of anguish brewed for the Nazarene

Thou can'st not pierce tradition with the peerless puncture,
See! I usurped thy crucifix to honor mine!