The Old, Old Story

By Charlotte M. Mason
The Parents’ Review, 1922, pp. 229-230

Behold two journeying by the way;

Dismayed with grief they go;

The singing birds, the lambs at play,

The gladness of an April day

Might not assuage their woe.

They speak together and are sad;

Now this one, and now, that

Recalls a look, recounts a word—

Some saying of the Master’s, heard

Whilst in their midst He sat.

A third wayfarer joins the two;

Inquires their cause of woe:

His kind accost moves them to tell

What dreadful death their Lord befell,

Now, just three days ago.—

“But we believed it had been He

The kingdom should restore;

A prophet, great in word and deed,

With grace for every suppliant’s need—

Flesh sick or spirit sore!

“Now, certain women of our band

Went early to the grave

On this third morn; the place was bare,

And spake an angel watching there—

‘He’s risen Whom ye crave!’”

As father kind, this wayside Friend

Now for their good did chide;

“O fools, and slow of heart,’ He said,

Must not the Christ have sufferèd,

Must at men’s hands have died?”

Then all the Scriptures opened He

To their amazèd gaze;

Perchance they saw the bruised Seed,

Isaiah’s Lamb, that Sufferer’s meed,—

God’s slow-fulfilling ways.

And all they heard, they understood;

New gladness filled their breast;

And when the Stranger turned away,

“Night is at hand,” they eager pray,

Abide with us and rest!”

Arrived within, they sit at meat;

Now, wonder holds the two;

The Stranger takes the Master’s place,

He breaks the bread and speaks the grace—

At last, their Lord they knew!

Instant He vanished from their sight:

Dazed, each to other turned;

“Surely we knew it was the Lord!

Mark’dst how at every mighty word

Our hearts within us burned?”

With haste they go to tell the rest,

They, too, had seen the Lord!

Still, when two friends together walk,

Jesus, their theme, doth join the talk,

And shew them all His Word.

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