creation that cup is being drunk from, as even yet it is in the groaning
and travailing of every creature, waiting for the adoption of the sons
of God, to wit, the redemption of the body (Romans viii, 22, 3).

The Descent from the Cross and the Burial come next. Tenderly, after the
telling of the anguish, comes the telling of the rest.

They lifted down Almighty God, after that torment dread,
They left me standing, drenched with blood, with arrows sore wounded;
They laid Him down, limb-weary One, and stood about His head;
Gazed on Heaven's Lord, who, weary now, after that mighty fight,
Rested Him there a little while. Then in the murderer's sight,
The brave ones made a tomb for Him, of white stone carved it fair,
And laid the Lord of Victory within the sepulchre.

The bitter weeping goes up. The fair Body waxes chill. Then, in a very
few words the story told in "Elene" is condensed.

Then did they fell us to the ground....
In the deep pit they sank us down; yet the Lord's servants, they,
His friends did hear of me and seek, and find me on a day,
And decked with silver and with gold, in beautiful array.

The glory comes after the shame, and we hear of the healing power of the
Cross, and the honour given to it. Even as Almighty God honoured His
Mother above all womankind, the poet says, so this tree is set high
above all trees of the forest.

The command is laid upon the poet to make known his vision. There is a
compulsion whereby a poet as it were has to send abroad the fair thought