Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon--
I, only I.

Yet give not o'er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

Beneath Thy Cross
Christina Rossetti

I am so impressed by this poem. I love Christina Rossetti, and have read a lot of her poetry and her brother Dante's. But somehow I've never come across this. I was listening to a sermon where the preacher read this poem. It reminds me of my two of my favorite prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the promises God gave through them.
In Jeremiah 31:31-33
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.

"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord:

I will put My law in their minds, and

write it on their hearts; and

I will be their God, and

they shall be My people.

"No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.�

Then there is Ezekiel 36:26-28
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses...."

That promise is already fulfilled in some of us. I'm not perfect and not until glory will I be. However, the Lord has mortified me in some ways that I get no rest, that my heart is broken before him, the weeping and the mourning doesn't cease until I repent and give over. It sticks like a burr in my side.

That's what Christina was seeking for in her poem.She was probably in a church looking at a cross, and feeling nothing and thinking of the women on that great day who wept and wept at the feet of the Savior. It hurt her that she would not be moved by that. Alot of people aren't. But she called upon the promises of God..to come seek her that lost sheep and to place his heart within, that the cross might have its way in her heart and life..as we all should.