114. Judaism
(A Tragic Chorus.)
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{192}
O PITEOUS race! |
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Fearful to look upon, |
| Once standing in
high place, |
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Heaven's eldest son. |
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O
aged blind
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| Unvenerable! as thou flittest by, |
| I liken thee to him in pagan song, |
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In
thy gaunt majesty, |
| The vagrant King, of haughty-purposed mind, |
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Whom prayer nor plague could
bend [Note]; |
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Wrong'd, at the cost of him who did the wrong,
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Accursed himself, but in his cursing strong,
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And honour'd in his end.
{193}
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O
Abraham! sire,
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Shamed in thy progeny;
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Who to thy faith aspire,
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Thy
Hope deny.
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Well
wast thou given
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From out the heathen an adopted heir,
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Raised strangely from the dead when sin had
slain
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Thy former-cherish'd care.
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O holy men, ye first-wrought gems of heaven
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Polluted in your kin,
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Come to our fonts, your lustre to regain.
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O Holiest Lord! ... but Thou canst take no stain
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Of
blood, or taint of sin.
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Twice
in their day
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Proffer of precious cost
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Was made, Heaven's hand to
stay
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Ere
all was lost.
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The
first prevail'd;
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Moses was outcast from the promised home,
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For his own sin, yet taken at his prayer
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To
change his people's doom.
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Close on their eve, one other ask'd and fail'd;
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{194} When
fervent Paul was fain
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The accursèd tree, as Christ had borne, to bear,
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No hopeful answer came,—a Price more rare
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Already shed in vain.
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Off Marseilles Harbour.
June 27, 1833.
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