"War sheathes his fangs, aloft on fearless wing
Peace broods above a restful universe;
A common faith and interest unite,
But conscience still her fullest freedom[24] sees.
Wider than Church extends the Kingdom's bound:
The law from Zion, and the royal word,
The Monarch's edict, from Jerusalem;
A centralized diffusion's balanced sway,
God's might, man's right, in equilibrium.
"Babel no more—stilled all her strifeful tongues; 1330
The primal language[25] o'er the world prevails;
And all is found again as at the first,
While ransomed hosts, rejoicing, shout and sing:
The Lord His ancient people hath redeemed;
The Lord hath gathered all things into one;
And earth becomes a heaven, for she is clothed
In garments as the glory of His light
Who reigneth in the midst, Life's Majesty.
"But ere it break, that bright millennial day,
There falls a nightlier hour than night hath known, 1340
When sun shall frown, moon blush, when dizzy stars,
Drunken with fumes of man's iniquity,
Shall hurl them headlong from their sparkling thrones,
And grovel darkly in the deep abyss;
While heaven shall tremble as if palsy-struck,
Earth as an aspen shaken in the wind.
Men's hearts shall fail, and where be safety found?
For tribulations till that hour unknown,
Save in the feeble typings of the past,
Terrors of famine, fire, and pestilence, 1350
Terrors of whirling wind and whelming wave,
Allied to horrors strange as manifold,
Shall stalk abroad to humble humankind,
To lift the lowly and abase the proud,
To straight the crooked and make smooth the crude,
Jehovah's awful pathway to prepare—
Jehovah, He who cometh to his own,
And by His own at last is recognized.
"No more a lowly Lamb, to slaughter led;
A Lion in his risen majesty— 1360
Lion and Lamb, for gentleness and might,
Mercy and justice, there go hand in hand.
"But first, the sickle in the ripened grain,
Reaping where faith is found, while hope endures,
Drawing the Gentile unto Israel's God,
And gathering the strewn of Abraham.
"Wells truth from earth, pours righteousness from heaven,
Till wisdom's waters inundate the world.
Bestirred the wave by angel trumpets blown,
Wafting the chosen seed to safety's strand, 1370
Winning the West ere yet the East be spoiled.
"Elijah comes—Elijah, he whose rays
Bespeak the Lord of Glory, from whose light
All splendors, paling, hide their tapers dim.
He comes the world to reap, the vineyard prune,
The wheat to garner, and the tares to burn;
He comes, his face a furnace, melting pride,
Consuming wickedness and cleansing worth.
He comes the hearts of sons and sires to turn,
To plant anew the promises of old, 1380
Binding the present to the parent past,
Part unto whole, time to eternity.
He comes the priestly fulness to unfold,
The capstone of life's temple here to lay.
He comes lest man be taken unaware,
And laggard earth be smitten with a curse.
"Hark to that prophet—outstretched Arm of God,
Who comes the ancient order to restore;
And list to him who leads, as Moses led,
The gathered house and host of Abraham!" 1390
Thrice through the night the radiant messenger
In burning words breathed forth the marvel told;
Till memory's page, as traced with pen of fire,
Glowed with each utterance ineffable.
And on the morrow stood the sacred twain—
Mortal, immortal, present linked with past—
Above the spot where slumbering truth reposed;
Not to be wakened yet till autumns four
Had rained their dews upon its resting-place.