ROCK OF AGES.
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"
Sang the lady, soft and low,
And her voice's gentle flow
Rose upon the evening air
With the sweet and solemn prayer:
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"
Yet she sang, as oft she had
When her heart was gay and glad,
Sang because she felt alone,
Sang because her soul had grown
Weary with the tedious day,
Sang to while the hours away:
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"
Where the fitful gaslight falls
On her father's massive walls.
On the chill and silent street
Where the lights and shadows meet,
There the lady's voice was heard,
As the breath of night was stirred
With her tones so sweet and clear,
Wafting up to God that prayer:
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"
Wandering, homeless thro' the night,
Praying for the morning light,
Pale and haggard, wan and weak,
With sunken eye and hollow cheek
Went a woman, one whose life
Had been wrecked in sin and strife;
One, a lost and only child,
One by sin and shame defiled;
And her heart with sorrow wrung,
Heard the lady when she sung:
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"
Pausing, low her head she bent,
And the music as it went
Pierced her blackened soul, and brought
Back to her (as lost in thought
Tremblingly she stood) the past,
And the burning tears fell fast,
As she called to mind the days
When she walked in virtue's ways.
When she sang that very song
With no sense of sin or wrong:
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"
On the marble steps she knelt,
And her soul that moment felt
More than she could speak, as there
Quivering, moved her lips in prayer,
And the God she had forgot
Smiled upon her lonely lot;
Heard her as she murmured oft,
With an accent sweet and soft:
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"
Little knew the lady fair,
As she sung in silence there,
That her voice had pierced a soul
That had lived 'neath sin's control!
Little knew, when she had done,
That a lost and erring one
Heard her—as she breathed that strain—
And returned to God again!
F. L. Stanton.