Thy face is whitened with remembered woe;
For thou alone, pale satellite, didst see,
Amid the shadows of Gethsemane,
The mingled cup of sacrifice o'erflow;
Nor hadst the power of utterance to show
The wasting wound of silent sympathy,
Till sudden tides, obedient to thee,
Sobbed, desolate in weltering anguish, low.
The holy night returneth year by year,
And while the mystic vapors from thy rim
Distil the dews, as from the Victim there
The red drops trickled in the twilight dim,
The ocean's changeless threnody we hear,
And gaze upon thee as thou didst on Him.