| |
| HIGH o’er this dim and wandering world | |
| Of shifting dreams and doubts and sighs, | |
| An angel leans, with burning eyes | |
| And wings like flames of fire up-curl’d. | |
| |
| It is his heart that feeds the flame | 5 |
| Whereby those mystic lamps, the seven, | |
| Light up the golden courts of heaven; | |
| Truth is his voice and Love his name. | |
| |
| Beyond this troubled twilight, born | |
| Of half-held creeds that clash and jar, | 10 |
| He glows, a bright unfalt’ring star, | |
| The herald of the coming morn. | |
| |
| He waits that hour, desired of God, | |
| When the clear beams within his eyes | |
| Shall burn to dust each house of lies | 15 |
| Where fetter’d feet so long have trod: | |
| |
| Where childhood’s love and woman’s trust | |
| Rise up like curses, night and day, | |
| To call down vengeance on the clay | |
| That treads its fellow-clay to dust: | 20 |
| |
| Where priestcraft, with its scorpion-rod, | |
| Smites fear into the trembling breast | |
| That else had dared to lie at rest | |
| On the great loving Heart of God: | |
| |
| Where strange bewildered gropers seek, | 25 |
| Through mists of vain and wordy strife. | |
| To enter at the gates of life | |
| And hear the Voice Eternal speak. | |
| |
| And HE SHALL speak—at whose decree | |
| From formless darkness light had birth, | 30 |
| And all the beauty of the earth, | |
| And all the glory of the sea. | |
| |
| “Arise and shine!” His Voice shall say. | |
| Then shall the Morning Star arise | |
| And scatter far the night of lies, | 35 |
| And love and truth bring forth the day. | |
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