Explore "The Legend of the Crossbill" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
By Julius Mosen
On the cross the dying Saviour / Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm, / Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling / In his pierced and bleeding palm.
And by all the world forsaken, / Sees he how with zealous care / At the ruthless nail of iron / A little bird is striving there.
Stained with blood and never tiring, / With its beak it doth not cease, / From the cross 't would free the Saviour, / Its Creator's Son release.
And the Saviour speaks in mildness: / "Blest be thou of all the good! / Bear, as token of this moment, / Marks of blood and holy rood!"
And that bird is called the crossbill; / Covered all with blood so clear, / In the groves of pine it singeth / Songs, like legends, strange to hear.