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ONE God the Arabian Prophet preached to man, | |
One God the Orient still | |
Adores through many a realm of mighty span, | |
A God of Power and Will | |
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A God that shrouded in His lonely light | 5 |
Rests utterly apart | |
From all the vast Creations of His might, | |
From Nature, Man, and Art: | |
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A Being in whose solitary hand | |
All other beings weigh | 10 |
No more than in the potters reckoning stand | |
The workings of his clay: | |
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A Power that at its pleasure will create, | |
To save or to destroy; | |
And to eternal pain predestinate, | 15 |
As to eternal joy: | |
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An unconditioned, irrespective Will, | |
Demanding simple awe, | |
Beyond all principles of good or ill, | |
Above idea of law. | 20 |
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No doctrine here of perfect Love divine, | |
To which the bounds belong | |
Only of that unalterable line | |
Disparting right from wrong: | |
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A love that while it must not regulate | 25 |
The issues of free-will, | |
By its own sacrifice can expiate | |
The penalties of ill. | |
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No message here of man redeemed from sin, | |
Of fallen nature raised, | 30 |
By inward strife and moral discipline | |
Higher than eer debased, | |
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Of the immense parental heart that yearns | |
From highest heaven to meet | |
The poorest wandering spirit that returns | 35 |
To its Creators feet. | |
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No Prophet here by common essence bound | |
At once to God and man, | |
Author Himself and part of the profound | |
And providential plan: | 40 |
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Himself the ensample of unuttered worth, | |
Himself the living sign, | |
How by Gods grace the fallen sons of earth | |
May be once more divine. | |
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Thus in the faiths old Heathendom that shook | 45 |
Were different powers of strife; | |
Mohammeds truth lay in a holy Book, | |
Christs in a sacred Life. | |
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So, while the world rolls on from change to change | |
And realms of thought expand, | 50 |
The Letter stands without expanse or range, | |
Stiff as a dead mans hand; | |
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While, as the life-blood fills the growing form, | |
The Spirit Christ has shed | |
Flows through the ripening ages fresh and warm, | 55 |
More felt than heard or read. | |
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And therefore, though ancestral sympathies, | |
And closest ties of race, | |
May guard Mohammeds precept and decrees, | |
Through many a tract of space, | 60 |
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Yet in the end the tight-drawn line must break, | |
The sapless tree must fall, | |
Nor let the form one time did well to take | |
Be tyrant over all. | |
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The tide of things rolls forward, surge on surge, | 65 |
Bringing the blessèd hour, | |
When in Himself the God of Love shall merge | |
The God of Will and Power. | |
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