U E see not, know not; all our way
V Is night, — with Thee alone is day: From out the torrent's troubled drift, Above the storm our prayers we lift,
Thy will be done !
The flesh may fail, the heart may saint,
But who are we to make complaint,
Or dare to plead, in times like these,
The weakness of our love of ease ?
Thy will be done!
We take with solemn thankfulness
Our burden up, nor ask it less,
And count it joy that even we
May suffer, serve, or wait for Thee,
Whose will be done!
Though dim as yet in tint and line, We trace Thy picture's wise design, And thank Thee that our age supplies Its dark relief of sacrifice.
Thy will be done!
And if, in our unworthiness,
Thy sacrificial wine we press
If from Thy ordeal's heated bars
Our feet are seamed with crimson scars,
Thy will be done!
If, for the age to come, this hour
Of trial hath vicarious power,
And, blest by Thee, our present pain
Be Liberty's eternal gain,
Thy will be done!
Strike, Thou the Master, we Thy keys,
The anthem of the destinies !
The minor of Thy loftier strain,
Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain,
Thy will be done!
THE firmament breaks up. In black
eclipse Light after light goes out. One evil star, Luridly glaring through the smoke of war, As in the dream of the Apocalypse, Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep Our faith and patience; wherefore should we
On one hand into fratricidal fight,
Or, on the other, yield eternal right,
Frame lies of law, and good and ill confound ?
What fear we? Safe on freedom's vantage
ground
Our feet are planted : let us there remain
In unrevengeful calm, no means untried
Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied,
The sad spectators of a suicide!
They break the links of Union : shall we light
The fires of hell to weld anew the chain
On that red anvil where each blow is pain ?
Draw we not even now a freer breath,
As from our shoulders falls a load of death
Loathsome as that the Tuscan's victim bore
When keen with life to a dead horror bound ?
Why take we up the accursed thing again?
Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more
Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunion's rag
With its vile reptile blazon. Let us press
The golden cluster on our brave old flag
In closer union, and, if numbering less,
Brighter shall shine the stars which still re-
main.
16th, 1st month, 1861.
|