| |
| O MOUNT beloved! mine eyes again | |
| Behold the twilight sanguine stain | |
| Along thy peaks expire; | |
| O mount beloved! thy frontier waste | |
| I seek with a religious haste | 5 |
| And reverent desire. | |
| |
| They meet me midst thy shadows cold,— | |
| Such thoughts as holy men of old | |
| Amidst the desert found; | |
| Such gladness as in Him they felt, | 10 |
| Who with them through the darkness dwelt, | |
| And compassed all around. | |
| |
| O, happy if His will were so, | |
| To give me manna here for snow, | |
| And, by the torrent side, | 15 |
| To lead me as he leads his flocks | |
| Of wild deer, through the lonely rocks, | |
| In peace unterrified; | |
| |
| Since, from the things that trustful rest,— | |
| The partridge on her purple nest, | 20 |
| The marmot in his den,— | |
| God wins a worship more resigned, | |
| A purer praise than He can find | |
| Upon the lips of men. | |
| |
| Alas for man! who hath no sense | 25 |
| Of gratefulness nor confidence, | |
| But still rejects and raves; | |
| That all God’s love can hardly win | |
| One soul from taking pride in sin, | |
| And pleasure over graves. | 30 |
| |
| Yet let me not, like him who trod | |
| In wrath of old the Mount of God, | |
| Forget the thousands left; | |
| Lest haply, when I seek his face, | |
| The whirlwind of the cave replace | 35 |
| The glory of the cleft. | |
| |
| But teach me, God, a milder thought, | |
| Lest I, of all Thy blood has bought, | |
| Least honorable be; | |
| And this, that moves me to condemn, | 40 |
| Be rather want of love for them | |
| Than jealousy for Thee. | |
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