A world is up in arms, and thou a spot
Not quickly found if negligently sought,
Thy soul as ample as thy bounds are small,
Endurest the brunt, and darest defy them all;
And wilt thou join to this bold enterprise
A bolder still, a contest with the skies?
Remember, if He guard thee and secure,
Whoe'er assails thee, thy success is sure;
But if He leave thee, though the skill and power
Of nations, sworn to spoil thee and devour,
Were all collected in thy single arm,
And thou couldst laugh away the fear of harm,
That strength would fail, opposed against the push
And feeble onset of a pigmy rush.
Say not (and if the thought of such defence
Should spring within thy bosom, drive it thence)
What nation amongst all my foes is free
From crimes as base as any charged on me?
Their measure filled, they too shall pay the debt,
Which God, though long forborne, will not forget.
But know that Wrath divine, when most severe,
Makes justice still the guide of his career,
And will not punish in one mingled crowd,
Them without light, and thee without a cloud.
NOTES.-Nullity, nothingness. Forensic war, a contest of argument, especially of barristers in a law-court.
"GET ye up from the wrath of God's terrible day! Ungirded, unsandalled, arise and away!
'Tis the vintage of blood, 'tis the fulness of time, And vengeance shall gather the harvest of crime !"
The warning was spoken, the righteous had gone,
And the proud ones of Sodom were feasting alone;
All gay was the banquet, the revel was long,
With the pouring of wine and the breathing of song.
'Twas an evening of beauty; the air was perfume, The earth was all greenness, the trees were all bloom; And softly the delicate viol was heard,
Like the murmur of love or the notes of a bird.
And beautiful maidens moved down in the dance, With the magic of motion and sunshine of glance; And white arms wreathed lightly and tresses fell free, As the plumage of birds in some tropical tree.
Where the shrines of foul idols were lighted on high,
And wantonness tempted the lust of the eye;
Midst rites of obsceneness, strange, loathsome, abhorred,
The blasphemer scoffed at the name of the Lord.
Hark! the growl of the thunder,-the quaking of earth!
Woe, woe to the worship, and woe to the mirth!
The black sky has opened,—there's flame in the air,—
The red arm of vengeance is lifted and bare!
Then the shriek of the dying rose wild where the song
And the low tone of love had been whispered along;
For the fierce flames went lightly o'er palace and bower,
Like the red tongues of demons, to blast and devour!
Down, down on the fallen the red ruin rained,
And the reveller sank with his wine-cup undrained;
The foot of the dancer, the music's loved thrill,
And the shout and the laughter grew suddenly still.
The last throb of anguish was fearfully given;
The last eye glared forth in its madness on heaven;
The last groan of horror rose wildly and vain,
And death brooded over the Pride of the Plain!
HER'S was a mother's heart,
That poor Egyptian's, when she drew apart
Because she would not see
Her child beloved in its last agony;
When her sad load she laid,
In her despair, beneath the scanty shade
In the wild waste, and stept
Aside, and long and passionately wept.
Yet higher, more sublime,
How many a mother since that ancient time
Has shown the rightly power
Of love divine, in such another hour.
Oh! higher love to wait
Fast by the sufferer in his worst estate,
Nor from the eyes to hide
One pang, but aye in courage to abide.
And though no angel bring
In that dark hour unto a living spring
Of gladness-as was sent,
Stilling her voice of turbulent lament
Oh! higher faith to show,
Out of what depths of anguish and of woe
The heart is strong to raise
To an all-loving Father hymns of praise.
"As strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul."-1 Pet. ii. 11.
MAN hath a weary pilgrimage,
As through the world he wends;
On every stage from youth to age
Still discontent attends;
With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,
And still remembers, with a sigh,
The days that are no more.
To school the little exile goes,
Torn from his mother's arms;
What then shall soothe his earliest woes,
When novelty hath lost its charms?
Condemned to suffer through the day
Restraints which no rewards repay,
And cares where love has no concern,
Hope lengthens as she counts the hours,
Before his wished return.
From hard control and tyrant rules,
The unfeeling discipline of schools,
In thought he loves to roam,
And tears will struggle in his eye,
While he remembers with a sigh
The comforts of his home.
Youth comes; the toils and cares of life
Torment the restless mind;
Where shall the tired and harassed heart
Its consolation find?
Then is not youth, as fancy tells,
Life's summer prime of joy?
Ah, no! for hopes too long delayed,
And feelings blasted or betrayed,
The fabled bliss destroy;
And youth remembers with a sigh
The careless days of infancy.
Maturer manhood now arrives,
And other thoughts come on,
But with the baseless hopes of youth
Its generous warmth is gone;
Cold calculating cares succeed,
The timid thought, the wary deed,
The dull realities of truth;
Back on the past he turns his eye,
Remembering with an envious sigh
The happy dreams of youth.
So reaches he the later stage
Of this our mortal pilgrimage,
With feeble step and slow;
New ills that later stage await,
And old experience learns too late
That all is vanity below.
Life's vain delusions are gone by,
Its idle hopes are o'er,
Yet age remembers with a sigh
The days that are no more.
"Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." Ruth i. 16.
FAREWELL? Oh no! it may not be ;
My firm resolve is heard on high:
I will not breathe farewell to thee,
Save only in my dying sigh.
I know not that I now could bear
For ever from thy side to part,
And live without a friend to share
The treasured sadness of my heart.
|