Poems of Nature, part 5, Religious Poems 1 | Page 6

firmament!
The burden of a prophet's power
Fell on me in that fearful hour;

From off unutterable woes
The curtain of the future rose;
I saw far
down the coming time
The fiery chastisement of crime;
With noise
of mingling hosts, and jar
Of falling towers and shouts of war,
I
saw the nations rise and fall,
Like fire-gleams on my tent's white
wall.
In dream and trance, I--saw the slain
Of Egypt heaped like harvest
grain.
I saw the walls of sea-born Tyre
Swept over by the spoiler's
fire;
And heard the low, expiring moan
Of Edom on his rocky
throne;
And, woe is me! the wild lament
From Zion's desolation
sent;
And felt within my heart each blow
Which laid her holy
places low.
In bonds and sorrow, day by day,
Before the pictured tile I lay;
And
there, as in a mirror, saw
The coming of Assyria's war;
Her swarthy
lines of spearmen pass
Like locusts through Bethhoron's grass;
I
saw them draw their stormy hem
Of battle round Jerusalem;
And,
listening, heard the Hebrew wail!
Blend with the victor-trump of Baal!
Who trembled at my warning
word?
Who owned the prophet of the Lord?
How mocked the rude,
how scoffed the vile,
How stung the Levites' scornful smile,
As o'er
my spirit, dark and slow,

The shadow crept of Israel's woe
As if the
angel's mournful roll
Had left its record on my soul,
And traced in
lines of darkness there
The picture of its great despair!
Yet ever at the hour I feel
My lips in prophecy unseal.
Prince, priest,

and Levite gather near,
And Salem's daughters haste to hear,
On
Chebar's waste and alien shore,
The harp of Judah swept once more.

They listen, as in Babel's throng
The Chaldeans to the dancer's
song,
Or wild sabbeka's nightly play,--
As careless and as vain as
they.
. . . . .
And thus, O Prophet-bard of old,
Hast thou thy tale of sorrow told

The same which earth's unwelcome seers
Have felt in all succeeding
years.
Sport of the changeful multitude,
Nor calmly heard nor
understood,
Their song has seemed a trick of art,
Their warnings
but, the actor's part.
With bonds, and scorn, and evil will,
The world
requites its prophets still.
So was it when the Holy One
The garments of the flesh put on
Men
followed where the Highest led
For common gifts of daily bread,

And gross of ear, of vision dim,
Owned not the Godlike power of
Him.
Vain as a dreamer's words to them
His wail above Jerusalem,

And meaningless the watch He kept
Through which His weak
disciples slept.
Yet shrink not thou, whoe'er thou art,
For God's great purpose set
apart,
Before whose far-discerning eyes,
The Future as the Present
lies!
Beyond a narrow-bounded age
Stretches thy prophet-heritage,

Through Heaven's vast spaces angel-trod,
And through the eternal
years of God
Thy audience, worlds!--all things to be
The witness of
the Truth in thee!
1844.
WHAT THE VOICE SAID
MADDENED by Earth's wrong and evil,
"Lord!" I cried in sudden ire,

"From Thy right hand, clothed with thunder,
Shake the bolted fire!
"Love is lost, and Faith is dying;
With the brute the man is sold;



And the dropping blood of labor
Hardens into gold.
"Here the dying wail of Famine,
There the battle's groan of pain;

And, in silence, smooth-faced Mammon
Reaping men like grain.
"'Where is God, that we should fear Him?'
Thus the earth-born Titans
say
'God! if Thou art living, hear us!'
Thus the weak ones pray."
"Thou, the patient Heaven upbraiding,"
Spake a solemn Voice within;

"Weary of our Lord's forbearance,
Art thou free from sin?
"Fearless brow to Him uplifting,
Canst thou for His thunders call,

Knowing that to guilt's attraction
Evermore they fall?
"Know'st thou not all germs of evil
In thy heart await their time?

Not thyself, but God's restraining,
Stays their growth of crime.
"Couldst thou boast, O child of weakness!
O'er the sons of wrong and
strife,
Were their strong temptations planted
In thy path of life?
"Thou hast seen two streamlets gushing
From one fountain, clear and
free,
But by widely varying channels
Searching for the sea.
"Glideth one through greenest valleys,
Kissing them with lips still
sweet;
One, mad roaring down the mountains,
Stagnates at their
feet.
"Is it choice whereby the Parsee
Kneels before his mother's fire?
In
his black tent did the Tartar
Choose his wandering sire?
"He alone, whose hand is bounding
Human power and human will,

Looking through each soul's surrounding,
Knows its good or ill.
"For thyself, while wrong and sorrow
Make to thee their strong
appeal,
Coward wert thou not to utter
What the heart must feel.

"Earnest words must needs be spoken
When the warm heart bleeds or
burns
With its scorn of wrong, or pity
For the wronged, by turns.
"But, by all thy nature's weakness,
Hidden faults and follies known,

Be thou, in rebuking evil,
Conscious of thine own.
"Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty
To thy lips her trumpet set,
But
with harsher blasts shall mingle
Wailings of regret."
Cease not, Voice of holy speaking,
Teacher sent of God, be near,

Whispering through the day's cool silence,
Let my spirit hear!
So, when thoughts of evil-doers
Waken scorn, or hatred move,

Shall a mournful fellow-feeling
Temper all with love.
1847.
THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE.
A FREE PARAPHRASE OF THE GERMAN.
To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest Angel gently
comes
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost
again;
And yet in tenderest