For thence do windows burst in Heaven and light
Breaks on our darkened lands,
And sovereign Mercy may fulfil through night
The Justice it demands.
Ah, not in evil but for endless good
He bids the sluices run
And death, to mould His blessed Brotherhood
Which had not else begun.
For if the great Arch-builder comes to frame
Yet broader empires, then
He lays the stones in blood and splendid shame
With glorious lives of men.
He takes our richest and requires the whole
Nor is content with less,
He cannot rear by a divided dole
The walls of Righteousness.
And so He forms His grand foundations deep
Not on our golden toys,
But in the twilight where the mourners weep
Of broken hearts and joys.
And He will only have the best or nought,
A full and willing price,
When the tall towers eternal are upwrought
With tears and sacrifice.
Our sighs and prayers, the loveliness of loss,
The passion and the pain
And sharpest nails of every noble cross,
Were never borne in vain.
That fragrant faith the incense of His courts,
Whereon this dim world thrives
And hardly gains at length His peaceful ports,
Is wrung from bruised lives.
Lo, when grim battle rages and is shed
A dreadful crimson dew,
God is at work and of the gallant dead
He maketh man anew.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25