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James Russell Lowell - The Search
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I went to seek for Christ,
    And Nature seemed so fair
That first the woods and fields my youth enticed,
  And I was sure to find him there:
    The temple I forsook,
    And to the solitude
Allegiance paid; but winter came and shook
  The crown and purple from my wood;
His snows, like desert sands, with scornful drift,
  Besieged the columned aisle and palace-gate;
My Thebes, cut deep with many a solemn rift,
  But epitaphed her own sepulchered state:
Then I remembered whom I went to seek,
And blessed blunt Winter for his counsel bleak.

    Back to the world I turned,
    For Christ, I said, is King;
So the cramped alley and the hut I spurned,
  As far beneath his sojourning:
    Mid power and wealth I sought,
    But found no trace of him,
And all the costly offerings I had brought
  With sudden rust and mould grew dim:
I found his tomb, indeed, where, by their laws,
  All must on stated days themselves imprison,
Mocking with bread a dead creed`s grinning jaws,
  Witless how long the life had thence arisen;
Due sacrifice to this they set apart,
Prizing it more than Christ`s own living heart.

    So from my feet the dust
    Of the proud World I shook;
Then came dear Love and shared with me his crust.
  And half my sorrow`s burden took.
    After the World`s soft bed,
    Its rich and dainty fare,
Like down seemed Love`s coarse pillow to my head,
  His cheap food seemed as manna rare;
Fresh-trodden prints of bare and bleeding feet,
  Turned to the heedless city whence I came,
Hard by I saw, and springs of worship sweet
  Gushed from my cleft heart smitten by the same;
Love looked me in the face and spake no words,
But straight I knew those footprints were the Lord`s.

    I followed where they led,
    And in a hovel rude,
With naught to fence the weather from his head,
  The King I sought for meekly stood;
    A naked, hungry child
    Clung round his gracious knee,
And a poor hunted slave looked up and smiled
  To bless the smile that set him free:
New miracles I saw his presence do,--
  No more I knew the hovel bare and poor,
The gathered chips into a woodpile grew,
  The broken morsel swelled to goodly store;
I knelt and wept: my Christ no more I seek,
His throne is with the outcast and the weak.
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