Indifference

Paul Lisney

I just recently came across this poem by G.A. Studdert Kennedy, an Anglican priest from the early 20th Century. I heard it recited by Archbishop Fulton Sheen on a video on You Tube and thought that it would make a good song. The melody came really quickly. Its in the key of A but I use a capo on the guitar and play in G.

INDIFFERENCE

When Jesus came to Golgotha, they
hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands
and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of
thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days,
and human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham they
simply passed Him by,
They never hurt a hair of Him, they only
let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and
they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street,
and left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, “Forgive them, for they
know not what they do,”
And still it rained the wintry rain that
drenched Him through and through;
The crowds went home, and left
the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall and
cried for Calvary.

From: “The Unutterable Beauty”,

the collected poetry of the Revd G.A. Studdert Kennedy,

Anglican priest and army chaplain during the 1914-8 war,

known as “Woodbine Willie” because he always had a cigarette to offer.

Published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1927.