Ecce Homo by John Berryman

Ecce Homo

Long, long with wonder I thought you human,

almost beyond humanity but not.

Once, years ago, only in a high bare hall

of the great Catalan museum over Barcelona,

I thought you might be more—

a Pantocrator glares down, from San Clemente de Tahull,

making me feel you probably were divine

but not human, through that majestic image.

Now I've come on something where you seem both.

A photograph of it only—

Burgundian, of painted & gilt wood,

life-size almost (not that we know your Semitic stature),

attenuated, your dead head bent forward sideways,

your long feet hanging, your thin long arms out

in unconquerable beseeching-