Meanwhile the unschooled prophet, angel-taught, 1400
In prayer and patience disciplined his soul;
And visiting yearly that revealing mount,
Learned from its lips a story of the past,
Affirmed in full when risen truth revealed
The pent-up secret of the centuries.
Words of the angel, Ramah's sentinel,
Custodian of Cumorah's[26] archive old:
CANTO SIX
From Out The Dust[1]
Jehovah's land—thy country—once mine own,
A sacred soil, a consecrated shore,
Where cometh up the universal Throne, 1410
Dominion that endureth evermore.
Whose God, with gods, in solemn council swore
No tyrant should this chosen land defile;
And nations here, that for a season bore
The palm of power, must righteous be[2] the while,
Or ruin's avalanche ruin on ruin pile.
Though not till brimmed with guilt their cup of crime,
Ripened the harvest of iniquity.
To races, nations, men, there is a time
To come and go, as wisdom shall decree,— 1420
Wisdom supreme, Tongue of Eternity.
But strikes the hour as men and nations will.
Unfettered in their choice of destiny,
They, by their deeds, the fateful measure fill;
Electing to be clean, or unclean lingering still.
Race upon race has perished in its pride;
And nations lustrous as the lights of heaven
Have sinned and sunk in reckless suicide,
Upon this ground, since that dread word was given.
Realms battle-rent, and regions tempest-riven; 1430
The wrath-swept land for ages desolate;
A wretched remnant blasted, curst, and driven
Before the furies of revengeful fate;
Till wonder asks in vain, What of their former state[3]?
Wouldst know the cause, the upas-tree that bore
The blight of desolation? 'Tis a theme
To melt earth's heart, and move all heaven to pour
With sorrow's heaving flood; as when supreme
O'er fallen Lucifer, the generous stream
Of grief half quenched the joy of victory. 1440
Mark how the annals of the ages teem
With repetition. Time, eternity,
The same have taught; but few, alas! the moral see.
There is a sin called self, which binds the world
In fetters fell, than all save truth more strong;
A sin most serpentine, round all men curled,
And in its fatal fold earth writhes full long;
Crime's great first cause, the primal root of wrong,
Parent of pride, and tree of tyranny.
To lay the axe doth unto thee belong. 1450
Strike, that the world may know of liberty,
And Zion's land indeed a land of Zion be!
A choice land, blest above all other lands,
Since earth, reborn, rose sinless from the flood;
Beloved by Him whose holy feet and hands
Were pierced to pour the all-redeeming blood.
Here stands the ancient Altar[4], and here stood
The Ark, till borne triumphant o'er the wave—
The hungry wave that made all flesh its food,
All save a few, whom godly living gave 1460
To see life's single way and shun death's dual grave[5].