Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.

Rome, Churches of

Christmas Night in St. Peter’s

By Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885)

LOW on the marble floor I lie:

I am alone:

Though friendly voices whisper nigh,

And foreign crowds are passing by,

I am alone.

Great hymns float through

The shadowed aisles. I hear a slow

Refrain, “Forgive them, for they know

Not what they do.”

With tender joy all others thrill;

I have but tears:

The false priests’ voices, high and shrill,

Reiterate the “Peace, good-will”;

I have but tears.

I hear anew

The nails and scourge; then come the low,

Sad words, “Forgive them, for they know

Not what they do.”

Close by my side the poor souls kneel;

I turn away;

Half-pitying looks at me they steal;

They think, because I do not feel,

I turn away.

Ah! if they knew,

How following them, where’er they go,

I hear, “Forgive them, for they know

Not what they do.”

Above the organ’s sweetest strains

I hear the groans

Of prisoners, who lie in chains,

So near, and in such mortal pains,

I hear the groans.

But Christ walks through

The dungeons of St. Angelo,

And says, “Forgive them, for they know

Not what they do.”

And now the music sinks to sighs;

The lights grow dim:

The Pastorella’s melodies

In lingering echoes float and rise;

The lights grow dim;

More clear and true,

In this sweet silence seem to flow

The words, “Forgive them, for they know

Not what they do.”

The dawn swings incense, silver gray;

The night is past;

Now comes, triumphant, God’s full day;

No priest, no church can bar its way:

The night is past;

How on this blue

Of God’s great banner, blaze and glow

The words, “Forgive them, for they know

Not what they do!”