| W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895. | | | | St. John the Baptist Beheaded in Prison (II.) | | From the Parisian Breviary |
| | Translated by Isaac Williams
NOR shall the Prophet ’scape unharm’d; | |
| The adultress, stung with guilt, with fury arm’d, | |
| Fires the fierce king: ever allied | |
| Murder and lust shall ravin side by side. | |
| Alas, where guilty passion reigns! | 5 |
| Innocent hands are given to felon chains, | |
| But that free voice which truth commands | |
| Cannot be held with chains, nor feel the prison bands. | |
| |
| E’en in the dungeon’s silent gloom | |
| He has a herald voice as from the tomb; | 10 |
| And bids his orphan children go | |
| That they the Lord of life by proof may know. | |
| The axe of death prepared to meet, | |
| The prisoner triumphs in his dungeon seat: | |
| The tyrant trembles, conscious sin | 15 |
| Keeps watch with silent scourge, and sleepless eye within. | |
| |
| O Lord, our hearts and hands we raise, | |
| A sacrifice to Thee of endless praise, | |
| Who dwellest in the infinite | |
| Of unapproachable and blessèd light; | 20 |
| Where the Seraphic hosts do cry, | |
| Holy, holy, holy, God Almighty;— | |
| The Father, Spirit, and the Son, | |
| The inconceivèd Three, the unutterable One. | | | | |
|
|
