Part 8 (1/2)

The Judge is set, the doom begun!

Who shall stay it?

On Torridge, May 1849.

THE DAY OF THE LORD

The Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand: Its storms roll up the sky: The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold; All dreamers toss and sigh; The night is darkest before the morn; When the pain is sorest the child is born, And the Day of the Lord at hand.

Gather you, gather you, angels of G.o.d-- Freedom, and Mercy, and Truth; Come! for the Earth is grown coward and old, Come down, and renew us her youth.

Wisdom, Self-Sacrifice, Daring, and Love, Haste to the battle-field, stoop from above, To the Day of the Lord at hand.

Gather you, gather you, hounds of h.e.l.l-- Famine, and Plague, and War; Idleness, Bigotry, Cant, and Misrule, Gather, and fall in the snare!

Hireling and Mammonite, Bigot and Knave, Crawl to the battle-field, sneak to your grave, In the Day of the Lord at hand.

Who would sit down and sigh for a lost age of gold, While the Lord of all ages is here?

True hearts will leap up at the trumpet of G.o.d, And those who can suffer, can dare.

Each old age of gold was an iron age too, And the meekest of saints may find stern work to do, In the Day of the Lord at hand.

On the Torridge, Devons.h.i.+re, September 10, 1849.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

It chanced upon the merry merry Christmas eve, I went sighing past the church across the moorland dreary-- 'Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave, And the bells but mock the wailing round, they sing so cheery.

How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again?

Still in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain, Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be cheery.'

Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere, Beneath the stars, across the snow, like clear bells ringing, And a voice within cried--'Listen!--Christmas carols even here!

Though thou be dumb, yet o'er their work the stars and snows are singing.

Blind! I live, I love, I reign; and all the nations through With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing.

Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do, Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it angels singing.'

Eversley, 1849.

THE OUBIT {260}