THEY know th’ Almighty’s power, | |
| Who, waken’d by the rushing midnight shower, | |
| Watch for the fitful breeze | |
| To howl and chafe amid the bending trees, | |
| Watch for the still white gleam | 5 |
| To bathe the landscape in a fiery stream, | |
| Touching the tremulous eye with sense of light | |
| Too rapid and too pure for all but Angel sight. | |
| |
| They know th’ Almighty’s love, | |
| Who, when the whirlwinds rock the topmost grove, | 10 |
| Stand in the shade, and hear | |
| The tumult with a deep exulting fear, | |
| How, in their fiercest sway, | |
| Curb’d by some power unseen, they die away, | |
| Like a bold steed that owns his rider’s arm, | 15 |
| Proud to be check’d and sooth’d by that o’er-mastering charm. | |
| |
| But there are storms within | |
| That heave the struggling heart with wilder din, | |
| And there is power and love | |
| The maniac’s rushing frenzy to reprove, | 20 |
| And when he takes his seat, | |
| Cloth’d and in calmness, at his Saviour’s feet, 1 | |
| Is not the power as strange, the love as blest, | |
| As when He said, ‘Be still,’ and ocean sank to rest? | |
| |
| Woe to the wayward heart, | 25 |
| That gladlier turns to eye the shuddering start | |
| Of Passion in her might, | |
| Than marks the silent growth of grace and light;— | |
| Pleas’d in the cheerless tomb | |
| To linger, while the morning rays illume | 30 |
| Green lake, and cedar tuft, and spicy glade, | |
| Shaking their dewy tresses now the storm is laid. | |
| |
| The storm is laid—and now | |
| In His meek power He climbs the mountain’s brow, | |
| Who bade the waves go sleep, | 35 |
| And lash’d the vex’d fiends to their yawning deep. | |
| How on a rock they stand, | |
| Who watch His eye, and hold His guiding hand! | |
| Not half so fix’d, amid her vassal hills, | |
| Rises the holy pile that Kedron’s valley fills. | 40 |
| |
| And wilt thou seek again | |
| Thy howling waste, thy charnel-house and chain, | |
| And with the demons be, | |
| Rather than clasp thine own Deliverer’s knee? | |
| Sure ’tis no heav’n-bred awe | 45 |
| That bids thee from His healing touch withdraw; | |
| The world and He are struggling in thine heart, | |
| And in thy reckless mood thou bidd’st thy Lord depart. | |
| |
| He, merciful and mild, | |
| As erst, beholding, loves His wayward child; | 50 |
| When souls of highest birth | |
| Waste their impassion’d might on dreams of earth, | |
| He opens Nature’s book, | |
| And on His glorious Gospel bids them look, | |
| Till by such chords, as rule the choirs above, | 55 |
| Their lawless cries are tun’d to hymns of perfect love. | |
