Mocked and scouraged, the appeal
not made, He stood before the bought crowd
and with disrobing eyes beseeched:

"Where are the fished five-thousand?
"Have their palates grown dull so soon?
"Where too are the cleansed ten?
"Are they not able still to call my name?
"And where is the hem toucer whose
blood my virture refined?
"Where are the palm spreaders?
"Has the autumn of their lives
come so soon?
"Where are my friends? --
Lazarus, Bacchaeus, Bartimaeus,
anicodemus, the Chosen Twelve, the healed,
the blessed, the forgiven, the exorcised?
"Will not one of you whose tongue I loosed
call out my name that fire might
once again descend from Heaven?"

Then cried they all again, saying,
"Not this man, but Barabbas!"

Unspoken and unwritten, the appeal
went unheard
as the condemned was carried off to
fulfill the Written WOrd.