The throneless ruler of the regnant race—
King, but no tyrant—prophet, priest, and seer,
Meets upon sacred summits, face to face
(As when to Moses drew Jehovah near),
The Infinite and Spirit Minister[45],
Meets Him as man meets man, and by His grace
The power is given, with seeric eye to peer,
Time's vista viewing through prophetic glass: 1720
Plain to his gaze revealed, the unborn ages pass.
War, slaughter, conquest; heroes, sages, famed;
Kingdoms, republics, empires, rise and fall;
Till pride unknown, and tyranny unnamed,
Where righteous rule brings blessedness to all.
Then self again, the universal thrall.
The faithful, dead or dwindled to a few,
Crime begets crimes the heavens to appall.
Now arrows of God's anger pierce them through,
And horrors piled on horrors make misery's retinue. 1730
All this and more the prophet-prince foresaw[46];
Messiah's self—Jehovah—Him beheld,—
The Perfect One, in whom was found no flaw,
Though slander as an ocean round Him swelled.
Life's deathless tree—deathless, though demon-felled;
The crash resounding to this far-off shore,
Whose winnowed remnant welcomed Him, revealed
In risen glory, when had ceased the roar
Of wrecking tempests, flung His radiant face before.
At Whose rebuke the haughty mountains bowed. 1740
Shorn by the whirlwind, sunk, or swept away,
No more their frown the lowly valleys cowed,
Rising like billows 'mid the wrathful fray,
And dashing 'gainst the skies their dusty spray.
Rocks, boulders, hills, no titan strength could lift,
Hurtle as pebbles in the storm-fiend's play.
Earth opes her jaws, and through the yawning rift
Cities, peoples, vanish; of hope, of life bereft.
Three hours of tempest, and three days of night;
Thick darkness, thunder-burst, and lightning flash; 1750
Millions engulfed, millions in prostrate plight,
Groveling as slaves that feel or fear the lash,
Mingling their groans and cries with grind and crash
Of crags the cyclone's catapult impels,
Whose shrieking flails the fields and forests thrash!
Wild o'er the land roused ocean's anger swells,
And flame's relentless tongue the final doom[47] foretells.
Three hours of stormful strife—then all is still,
Save for a voice the universe might hear,
Proclaiming what hath hapt as heaven's high will, 1760
Dispensing pardon and dispelling fear.
Anon a mightier marvel doth appear;
Uprolls the misty curtain of the sky—
The midday sun no more their minister,
Greater hath risen! and glories multiply,
As angels in their gaze earthward and heavenward fly.
He greets them as a shepherd greets his flock;
Shows them His wounded side, His hands, His feet;
Then builds His church upon the stricken Rock,
Where flow life's healing waters, limpid, sweet, 1770
As infant innocence[48], that joys to meet
Its great Original. With holy hand
He ministers, bids death and hell retreat,
And singles twelve from out the sainted band,
To sow with words of life the trembling, tear-worn land.
He bids them prize the truth from heaven outpoured—
What late His tongue hath told, and all that seers
Of earlier days, who owned Him as their Lord,
Have sounded in a world's unwilling ears;
That truth with truth may blend in after years, 1780
As rivers many to one ocean flow;
That when Messiah in his might appears,
Men all may see Him as he is, and know
The Majesty of Heaven, 'mid nations bending low.
He greets them as His "other sheep"[49]—a fold
Unknown to Judah, but to Jesus known;
And tells of others still, whose fate untold
Hath been the skeptic's scoff and stumbling stone.
All Israel must hear, and one alone
The shepherd be, to guide and govern all. 1790
Where'er, from torrid belt to icy zone,
They wander, they must heed the warning call,
And flee to Zion's shore ere crumbling Babel fall.
He numbers them with Joseph, known of old,
Whose flock the wolves shall tear in time to come;
Because a wasteful heir his portion sold,
A prodigal forsook the parent dome,
To riot in the wilderness and roam,
Feeding on husks: yet, turning at the last,
Redeemed from darkness, to the Father's home; 1800
And there, the hour of retribution past,
Forgiven, at His dear feet their weary souls they cast.