“Ah! from that silent sacred land
Of sun, and arid stone,
And crumbling wall, and sultry sand,
Comes now one word alone!
“From David’s lips that word did roll;
’Tis true and living yet,—
No man can save his brother’s soul,
Nor pay his brother’s debt.
“Alone, self-poised, henceforward man
Must labor; must resign
His all too human creeds, and scan
Simply the way divine;
“But slow that tide of common thought,
Which bathed our life, retired;
Slow, slow the old world wore to naught,
And pulse by pulse expired.
“Its frame yet stood without a breach,
When blood and warmth were fled;
And still it spake its wonted speech,
But every word was dead.
“And oh! we cried, that on this corse
Might fall a freshening storm!
Rive its dry bones, and with new force
A new-sprung world inform!
“—Down came the storm! O’er France it passed
In sheets of scathing fire.
All Europe felt that fiery blast,
And shook as it rushed by her.
“Down came the storm! In ruins fell
The worn-out world we knew.
It passed, that elemental swell:
Again appeared the blue;
“The sun shone in the new-washed sky.
—And what from heaven saw he?
Blocks of the past, like icebergs high,
Float on a rolling sea!
“Upon them plies the race of man
All it before endeavored:
‘Ye live,’ I cried, ‘ye work and plan,
And know not ye are severed!