Then rouse thee from desponding sleep,
Nor by the wayside lingering weep,
Nor fear to seek Him farther in the wild,
Whose love can turn earth’s worst and least
Into a conqueror’s royal feast:
Thou wilt not be untrue, thou shalt not be beguiled.
Eight Sunday after Trinity.
It is the man of God, who was disobedient unto the word of the Lord. 1 King xiii. 26.
Prophet of God, arise and take
With thee the words of wrath divine,
The scourge of Heaven, to shake
O’er yon apostate shrine.
Where Angels down the lucid stair
Came hovering to our sainted sires
Now, in the twilight, glare
The heathen’s wizard fires.
Go, with thy voice the altar rend,
Scatter the ashes, be the arm,
That idols would befriend,
Shrunk at thy withering charm.
Then turn thee, for thy time is short,
But trace not o’er the former way,
Lest idol pleasures court
Thy heedless soul astray.
Thou know’st how hard to hurry by,
Where on the lonely woodland road
Beneath the moonlight sky
The festal warblings flowed;
Where maidens to the Queen of Heaven
Wove the gay dance round oak or palm,
Or breathed their vows at even
In hymns as soft as balm.
Or thee, perchance, a darker spell
Enthralls: the smooth stones of the flood,
By mountain grot or fell,
Pollute with infant’s blood;