Messages from My Soul

A Crowd of The Ignoble

A CROWD OF THE IGNOBLE

Ecce Homo! shouted I to the populace--

Behold the man who by me stood,

Behold him, a picture of absolute woe

Behold him, the man who replied

Only silence to persecution.

I wondered how grave a sin that 'twas committed he

To this much reproach incur

Too much that e'en sympathy found no place.

In their eyes I looked for it,

But I miserably ended up finding none.

They are shouting in grim unison:

Crucify Him! Crucify Him!

Beneath that uproar, this man stood

Unmoved by all this injustice,

Unmoved by this cruelty,

Unmoved by the dire fate

They desired to upon Him impose.

What was it that was upon His face?

Calm it remained, serene, with the bearing

That more befits a king.

After all, He is, or so He believes,

A king, only not of this world.

He stared at me, and as if

He were piercing, probing, fathoming

The very abyss of my ugly soul.

I turned to this dishonorable mob--

A crowd of the ignoble--

And asked them, Will you crucify your king?

But they answered back to me,

We a king do not have, save Caesar!

Rose the tumult and the din

That I was eventually overpowered.

My pleading, my conviction of His innocence,

My puny resolve was trampled 

By their crooked judgment.

'Twixt this man, and a robber,

They the latter chose to free,

While this man, this man woebegone,

Was sealed to a doom most unjust.

And, wanting to cleanse myself

Of this eventual abomination,

I called for water and my hands I washed in it,

Showing it to them, declaring guilty I am not

Of the innocent blood to be shed.

Thus, with that, the bitter fate was sure

And from the gloating masses of hypocrites before me

Heard I this merciless reply:

Its sin be unto us,

E'en unto our children after us. . .