13 Blest showers they are, and streams sent from above;
Begetting virgins where they use to flow;
The trees of life no other waters love,
Than upper springs, and none else make them grow.
14 But these chaste fountains flow not till we die.
Some drops may fall before; but a clear spring
And ever running, till we leave to fling
Dirt in her way, will keep above the sky.
'He that is dead is freed from sin.'—ROM. vi. 7.
THE JEWS.
1 When the fair year
Of your Deliverer comes,
And that long frost which now benumbs
Your hearts shall thaw; when angels here
Shall yet to man appear,
And familiarly confer
Beneath the oak and juniper;
When the bright Dove,
Which now these many, many springs
Hath kept above,
Shall with spread wings
Descend, and living waters flow
To make dry dust, and dead trees grow;
2 Oh, then, that I
Might live, and see the olive bear
Her proper branches! which now lie
Scattered each where;
And, without root and sap, decay;
Cast by the husbandman away.
And sure it is not far!
For as your fast and foul decays,
Forerunning the bright morning star,
Did sadly note his healing rays
Would shine elsewhere, since you were blind,
And would be cross, when God was kind,—
3 So by all signs
Our fulness too is now come in;
And the same sun, which here declines
And sets, will few hours hence begin
To rise on you again, and look
Towards old Mamre and Eshcol's brook.
For surely he
Who loved the world so as to give
His only Son to make it free,
Whose Spirit too doth mourn and grieve
To see man lost, will for old love
From your dark hearts this veil remove.
4 Faith sojourned first on earth in you,
You were the dear and chosen stock:
The arm of God, glorious and true,
Was first revealed to be your rock.
5 You were the eldest child, and when
Your stony hearts despised love,
The youngest, even the Gentiles, then,
Were cheered your jealousy to move.
6 Thus, righteous Father! dost thou deal
With brutish men; thy gifts go round
By turns, and timely, and so heal
The lost son by the newly found.