Poems of Nature, part 5, Religious Poems 1 | Page 3

her mountains
nod;
Well may the sheeted dead come forth
To see the suffering son
of God!
Well may the temple-shrine grow dim,
And shadows veil
the Cherubim,
When He, the chosen one of Heaven,
A sacrifice for
guilt is given!
And shall the sinful heart, alone,
Behold unmoved the fearful hour,

When Nature trembled on her throne,
And Death resigned his iron
power?
Oh, shall the heart--whose sinfulness
Gave keenness to His
sore distress,
And added to His tears of blood--
Refuse its trembling
gratitude!
1834.
PALESTINE
Blest land of Judaea! thrice hallowed of song,
Where the holiest of
memories pilgrim-like throng;
In the shade of thy palms, by the
shores of thy sea,
On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee.
With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore
Where pilgrim and
prophet have lingered before;
With the glide of a spirit I traverse the
sod
Made bright by the steps of the angels of God.
Blue sea of the hills! in my spirit I hear
Thy waters, Gennesaret,
chime on my ear;
Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat down,

And thy spray on the dust of His sandals was thrown.
Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green,
And the desolate hills of
the wild Gadarene;
And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see

The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee!

Hark, a sound in the valley! where, swollen and strong,
Thy river, O
Kishon, is sweeping along;
Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah
in vain,
And thy torrent grew dark with the blood of the slain.
There down from his mountains stern Zebulon came,
And Naphthali's
stag, with his eyeballs of flame,
And the chariots of Jabin rolled
harmlessly on,
For the arm of the Lord was Abinoam's son!
There sleep the still rocks and the caverns which rang
To the song
which the beautiful prophetess sang,
When the princes of Issachar
stood by her side,
And the shout of a host in its triumph replied.
Lo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen,
With the mountains
around, and the valleys between;
There rested the shepherds of Judah,
and there
The song of the angels rose sweet on the air.
And Bethany's palm-trees in beauty still throw
Their shadows at noon
on the ruins below;
But where are the sisters who hastened to greet

The lowly Redeemer, and sit at His feet?
I tread where the twelve in their wayfaring trod;
I stand where they
stood with the chosen of God--
Where His blessing was heard and
His lessons were taught,
Where the blind were restored and the
healing was wrought.
Oh, here with His flock the sad Wanderer came;
These hills He toiled
over in grief are the same;
The founts where He drank by the wayside
still flow,
And the same airs are blowing which breathed on His
brow!
And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet,
But with dust on her
forehead, and chains on her feet;
For the crown of her pride to the
mocker hath gone,
And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone.
But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode
Of Humanity clothed

in the brightness of God?
Were my spirit but turned from the outward
and dim,
It could gaze, even now, on the presence of Him!
Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when,
In love and in
meekness, He moved among men;
And the voice which breathed
peace to the waves of the sea
In the hush of my spirit would whisper
to me!
And what if my feet may not tread where He stood,
Nor my ears hear
the dashing of Galilee's flood,
Nor my eyes see the cross which he
bowed Him to bear,
Nor my knees press Gethsemane's garden of
prayer.
Yet, Loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near
To the meek, and the
lowly, and penitent here;
And the voice of Thy love is the same even
now
As at Bethany's tomb or on Olivet's brow.
Oh, the outward hath gone! but in glory and power.
The spirit
surviveth the things of an hour;
Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost
flame
On the heart's secret altar is burning the same
1837.
HYMNS.
FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE
I.
"Encore un hymne, O ma lyre
Un hymn pour le Seigneur,
Un
hymne dans mon delire,
Un hymne dans mon bonheur."
One hymn more, O my lyre!
Praise to the God above,
Of joy and
life and love,
Sweeping its strings of fire!
Oh, who the speed of bird and wind
And sunbeam's glance will lend
to me,
That, soaring upward, I may find
My resting-place and home
in Thee?
Thou, whom my soul, midst doubt and gloom,
Adoreth
with a fervent flame,--
Mysterious spirit! unto whom
Pertain nor

sign nor name!
Swiftly my lyre's soft murmurs go,
Up from the cold and joyless earth,

Back to the God who bade them flow,
Whose moving spirit sent
them forth.
But as for me, O God! for me,
The lowly creature of
Thy will,
Lingering and sad, I sigh to Thee,
An earth-bound pilgrim
still!
Was not my spirit born to shine
Where yonder stars and suns are
glowing?
To breathe with them the light divine
From God's own
holy altar flowing?
To be, indeed, whate'er the soul
In