And say, cold Sophist! if by thee bereft
Of that high hope, to misery what were left?
But for the vision of the days to be,
But for the comforter despised by thee,
Should we not wither at the Chastener’s look,
Should we not sink beneath our God’s rebuke,
When o’er our heads the desolating blast,
Fraught with inscrutable decrees, hath pass’d,
And the stem power who seeks the noblest prey
Hath call’d our fairest and our best away?