Page:The Christian Year 1887.djvu/86

Thy tranced yet open gaze
   Fixed on the desert haze,
As one who deep in heaven some airy pageant sees.

   In outline dim and vast
   Their fearful shadows cast
This giant forms of empires on their way
   To ruin: one by one
   They tower and they are gone,
Yet in the Prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay.

   No sun or star so bright
   In all the world of light
That they should draw to Heaven his downward eye:
   He hears th' Almighty's word,
   He sees the angel's sword,
Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie.

   Lo! from you argent field,
   To him and us revealed,
One gentle Star glides down, on earth to dwell.
   Chained as they are below
   Our eyes may see it glow,
And as it mounts again, may track its brightness well.

   To him it glared afar,
   A token of wild war,
The banner of his Lord's victorious wrath:
   But close to us it gleams,
   Its soothing lustre streams
Around our home's green walls, and on our church-way path.

   We in the tents abide
   Which he at distance eyed
Like goodly cedars by the waters spread,
   While seven red altar-fires
   Rose up in wavy spires,
Where on the mount he watched his sorceries dark and dread.

   He watched till morning's ray
   On lake and meadow lay,
And willow-shaded streams that silent sweep
   Around the bannered lines,
   Where by their several signs
The desert-wearied tribes in sight of Canaan sleep.