Sharp throes and torrid harbingers of fever
Came swift upon me, and I felt death nigh,
And yet no tear regretful blurred my eye.
Death will be balked; He will not let me die,
He, the all-healing and sublime reliever.

Thus in my woe I raved, in anguish sighing,
Tortured and bent, the prey to growing pain.
My sisters sent quick messengers in vain,
While he, who cleansed the lepers of the plain,
Abandoned me disconsolate and dying!

Ah! cruelly he delayed and let me languish
In those disastrous hours, undone and numb,
Deaf to my cries and to my suffering dumb;
Yet, had he chosen in majesty to come,
I never would have known my present anguish.

*****

Then slowly I felt all sense and motion leave me;
I knew no more of earth, for I had died
Among the loved ones sobbing by my side,
And, when a day in pallor I did abide,
The distant vault was opened to receive me.

Three days I lay a corpse in death's foul keeping,
Wrapped in dull cerements, hidden from all eyes,
Mourned by fond Mary, being then the prize
Of worms sepulchral, nevermore to rise,
While Mary swooned before the portal weeping.

And Jesus, who, when I was dead, had wandered,
Serenely preaching through Samaria's bloom,
Heedless of me and his impendent doom,
At last with weary feet approached my tomb,
And, seeing it closed, wept bitterly and pondered.

Then in a prayer supreme his strength assembling,
Raising unto the skies his holy head,
With hesitations all divine, he said:
" Come forth, oh Lazarus! " and from the dead
I rose, forthcoming, stupefied and trembling.

My eyes were blinded and my footsteps blundered,
As he came toward me with a helping palm;
He touched me lightly, and his touch was balm,
Giving to body strength, to spirit calm,
While the awed throng around him prayed and wondered!