In its humiliation, the tree is forced to bear criminals suspended upon it.  Men carried me on their shoulders to a hill where they set me down  Not only the devil, then, but other men drag the tree – and by analogy, the soul – into sinful situations where it feels helpless.  There is worse to come.  The tree is obliged to raise up, as on a gallows, the Master of Mankind a title which recognises the unique nature of the crucified man.

I saw the Master of Mankind hasten with all his heart, because he wished to climb upon me.  I did not dare against God’s word bow or break, though I saw earth’s surface tremble.  The young hero stripped himself – he who was God almighty – strong and stout hearted.  He climbed upon the gallows, valiant in the sight of many, for he would redeem mankind.  The eagerness with which Christ goes to his Passion and death, for the world’s ransom.  The tree’s part is to allow him to fulfil His purpose, to bear on its branches the suffering Christ, in spite of the shuddering of the Cosmos.  Its pain derives partly from the collusion it is obliged, apparently, to make with the forces of evil, although with the consent and desire of God.  There is a struggle for humility.  The dreamer or the soul begins likewise to understand that his salvation requires the Passion and death of the Christ, the fairest of the sons of men.  He sees that he must collaborate in his own atonement by receiving Christ’s sacrifice.  He cannot refuse it out of pride or false humility.  He must allow Christ to pay the full price for him by His Blood.

The poem resumes: I shook when the warrior embraced me, yet I dared not bow to the earth, fall to the ground’s surface.  A cross was I raised; I lifted up the Mighty King, Lord of the Heavens; I dared not bend.  It is as if all the forces of earth and hell were ranged against the tree and that it needed all its innate inflexibility to withstand them.  Analogously, the soul when tested, has to stand firm against whatever would destroy faith, hope and love, even when it seems that he will be overwhelmed.  Says Maximus of Turin: “When a person is given over to suffering, he is not handed over to death”[1].  Then he is upholding, holding up the Master of mankind.

[1] Vigils, Nocturn III

In the dream, the sufferings of the Rood are now detailed: They pierced me with dark nails – on me are the wounds seen, open, hateful gashes.  Nor did I dare do harm to any of them.  They mocked us both together.  I was all wet with blood shed from the sides of that Man by the time He had sent forth His Spirit.  Many bitter things I had endured on that hill.  I saw the God of hosts cruelly mocked.  Darkness had covered with its mists the Ruler’s Body, the bright splendour.  Shadow came forth, dark under the clouds.  All creation wept, bewailed the King’s fall: Christ was on the Cross.  The tree empathises with the Crucified Man, experiencing the same wounds – the nails, the gashes, the streaming of blood.  Like its Lord and Master, it does not retaliate: They mocked us both together.  The tree thus shares in Christ’s humiliation, even assumes it, in another analogy with the Christian disciple who participates gladly in the Passion for Christ’s sake.

Already, however, the tree of the Cross begins to see fruits of the Passion.  The redeemed gather round the dead Christ and Mary herself whom Almighty God for the sake of all men honoured above all woman’s kind.  From afar, the poem continues, ready and willing there came some to the Lord, a reference to Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.  This time the rigid wood of the tree learns to bend, to become supple.  Sore was I troubled, yet I bent to the hands of men, with all my heart humble.  They took almighty God, lifted Him from the great torment.  The warriors let me stand, stained with blood.  I was all wounded with arrows.  They laid him down, limb weary, stood at His body’s Head, gazed upon heaven’s Lord and He rested Him there awhile, exhausted after the great struggle.  The friends of the dead Lord began to sing for Him a song of lament, sad in the evening.  Then would they depart, tired, from the great Lord … yet we (ie the three crosses on Calvary) stood in our places a good while weeping.  Further indignity: the tree is now felled and buried in a deep pit, in another resemblance to the destiny of the crucified.