10 Touching Poems about Jesus Christ

Christ was featured as a savior as well as the lover of mankind in poetry. In some poems, he is portrayed as a sufferer. But, his suffering is for the sake of redeeming humanity from the clutches of Satan. Poets explore Christ and his passion from different angles. Some of them preferred to portray different aspects of his life. This list contains ten different ways to appreciate Christ.

Holy Sonnet XVIII: Show Me, Dear Christ by John Donne

It is one of the divine sonnets of John Donne. This piece is known by its first line “Show me, dear Christ, thy Spouse, so bright and clear.” Through this poem, Donne depicts Christ as the husband of all the human souls. He describes his soul as an amorous lady who adores Christ. Donne waits for him to embrace his soul by taunting him in the last four lines of the sonnet:

Betray, kind husband, thy spouse to our sights,

And let mine amorous soul court thy mild dove,

Who is most true and pleasing to thee then

When she’s embraced and open to most men.

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Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity by John Milton

This hymn of John Milton is similar to his poem ‘On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity’. In this piece, Milton describes the morning when Christ was born. He uses emotive language to describe the surroundings in order to portray how Christ was born amidst a hopeless scene. Here are the first few lines of this piece:

IT was the Winter wilde,

While the Heav’n-born-childe,

   All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;

Nature in aw to him

Had doff’t her gawdy trim,

   With her great Master so to sympathize:

It was no season then for her

To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour.

Read more John Milton poems.

Hope Holds to Christ by Gerard Manley Hopkins

In this poem, Hopkins personifies “Hope” that holds the mind’s mirror to Christ. Through this personification, Hopkins compares hope to Christ. According to him, Christ is the embodiment of hope to mankind. When a hopeful person holds his mind’s mirror to the almighty, he can see his own reflection on it. The last two lines tell it to readers:

I told you that she turned her mirror dim

Betweenwhiles, but she sees herself not Him.

Discover more G.M. Hopkins poems.

Gautama Christ by Pablo Neruda

In ‘Gautama Christ,’ Neruda describes how the brutality of modern times, in the name of Christ or other divine figures, has hurt humanity to its core. He is of the view that the way we have forgotten our ancestors and their way of praying, leads us to destroy the basic essence of humanity. Now, we can only feel those smooth substances that are worn out and used up by both the good and the evil. Let’s have a look at a few lines from the poem:

Those who discovered the hymn that united them in misfortune 

And now seeing the empty fragments which sheltered those 

    ancient people 

We feel those smooth substances, 

Worn out and used up by good and by evil.

Read more Pablo Neruda poems.

I Am Christ’s by Leslie Alexis

‘I Am Christ’s’ is an emotive piece that describes a speaker’s unconditional love for Christ. According to her, God is protecting him from Satan by raising his bar. He is not only protecting the speaker from the evil forces but all those who love him truly. In this spiritual war between good and evil, Christ will be victorious. The speaker is sure of Satan’s defeat:

You lost since you first started this spiritual war.

You’re worthless, but My God just keeps raising his bar.

In Heaven, at the right hand of God’ I’ll sit.

I haven’t been there, but my eyes can see it.

Christ of Everywhere by Henry Van Dyke

In this poem, Dyke portrays Christ as a lover of mankind. According to him, Christ is the lover of creation. He is patient with the impatient humankind who are stuck in the cycle of virtue and sin. Dyke implores him to teach humankind the language of peace in these lines:

Thou Living Word, larger than any creed,

Thou Love Divine, uttered in human deed, —

Oh, teach the world, warring and wandering still,

Thy way of Peace, the foot path of Good Will!

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Christ Crucified by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

This piece reveals how Christ is still crucified. In the modern world, the rise of industrialization, hatred, and oppression have tortured the souls of those who seek peace and kindness to others. As long as those souls are tortured, Christ will remain crucified. Wilcox in a disheartened tone talks about this fact in these lines:

I saw the mill, the mine, and shop, the little slaves of greed;

I heard the strife of race with race, all sprung from one God-seed.

And then I bowed my head in shame, and in contrition cried –

‘Lo, after nineteen hundred years, Christ still is crucified.’

Read more Ella Wheeler Wilcox poems.

Christ’s Nativity by Henry Vaughan

Vaughan’s ‘Christ’s Nativity’ is composed of regularly rhyming lines. The poet uses a regular meter as well. It is thirty lines long and separated into five stanzas. This poem celebrates the day of Christ’s nativity. The speaker harks everyone to wake up as Christ is born and welcomes them to celebrate this divine moment. Let’s have a look at the last stanza of the poem:

Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no more

This leper haunt and soil thy door!

Cure him, ease him,

O release him!

And let once more, by mystic birth,

The Lord of life be born in earth.

Explore more Henry Vaughan’s devotional poems.

Conference between Christ, the Saints, and the Soul by Christina Georgina Rossetti

In this poem, Rossetti talks about a divine conversation between her and Christ. Christ welcomes her to enjoy the sweets of heaven by leaving his earthly burden behind. From her tone, it is clear that she also said wants to be with him and rest in heaven with the saints. Let’s have a look at how Jesus calls her soul in with an adorable voice:

Saith Jesus—Come and see.

Say the Saints—His Pleasures please us

Before God and the Lamb.

Come and taste My Sweets—saith Jesus—

Be with Me where I am.

Discover more Christina Georgina Rossetti’s poems.

Jesus! thy Crucifix by Emily Dickinson

This poem consists of only six lines that are separated into two tercets. In the first tercet, Dickinson portrays how Christ is more powerful than the cross on which he was crucified.

Jesus! thy Crucifix

Enable thee to guess

The smaller size!

The next tercet reveals how he is placed at the paradise of human beings for the sufferings he endured for the sake of humanity. Through this piece, Dickinson reveals her love for Christ, a redeemer, and lover of mankind.

Explore Dickinson’s greatest poems and more Emily Dickinson poems.