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(From Fifth Sunday in Lent)
THE HISTORIC Muse, from age to age, | |
| Through many a waste heart-sickening page | |
| Hath traced the works of man: | |
| But a celestial call to-day | |
| Stays her, like Moses, on her way, | 5 |
| The works of God to scan. | |
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| Far seen across the sandy wild, | |
| Where like a solitary child | |
| He thoughtless roamed and free, | |
| One towering thorn was wrapt in flame,— | 10 |
| Bright without blaze it went and came: | |
| Who would not turn and see? | |
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| Along the mountain ledges green | |
| The scattered sheep at will may glean | |
| The desert’s spicy stores: | 15 |
| The while, with undivided heart, | |
| The shepherd talks with God apart, | |
| And, as he talks, adores. | |
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| Ye too, who tend Christ’s wildering flock, | |
| Well may ye gather round the rock | 20 |
| That once was Sion’s hill: | |
| To watch the fire upon the mount | |
| Still blazing, like the solar fount, | |
| Yet unconsuming still. | |
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| Caught from that blaze by wrath divine, | 25 |
| Lost branches of the once-loved vine, | |
| Now withered, spent, and sere, | |
| See Israel’s sons, like glowing brands, | |
| Tost wildly o’er a thousand lands | |
| For twice a thousand year. | 30 |
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| God will not quench nor slay them quite, | |
| But lifts them like a beacon light | |
| The apostate Church to scare; | |
| Or like pale ghosts that darkling roam, | |
| Hovering around their ancient home, | 35 |
| But find no refuge there. | |
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| Ye blessed angels! if of you | |
| There be, who love the ways to view | |
| Of kings and kingdoms here, | |
| (And sure, ’t is worth an angel’s gaze, | 40 |
| To see throughout the dreary maze, | |
| God teaching love and fear): | |
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| O, say, in all the bleak expanse, | |
| Is there a spot to win your glance, | |
| So bright, so dark as this? | 45 |
| A hopeless faith, a homeless race, | |
| Yet seeking the most holy place, | |
| And owning the true bliss! * * * * * | |
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