The Least to the Greatest (For Saint James the Lesser)
The world will know enough about us, if it know this much: and even if the world know it not, it suffices so long as God knows it.
(Christina Rossetti, Time Flies: A Reading Diary)
In Portugal a statue stands
Where with one hand he holds a flame
And with the other he lifts high
Something which we cannot see.
The others have their glory-tales
Of crucifixions upside-down,
Beheadings, trips to India,
And maybe Spain. He has none.
Was he this James or that? we ask,
And scarcely can we hope for reply.
Our deepest diggings only find
A few dim guesses and blind leads.
Yet this we know:
He walked in footsteps which we all,
The greatest and the least of us,
Would give a thousand lives to walk,
And where he lives now he’ll rejoice
And lift his empty hands up high
To raise aloft the wondrous news
That one was great while he was less.
The Consolations of Writing 