TEN cleans’d, and only one remain! | |
| Who would have thought our nature’s stain | |
| Was dyed so foul, so deep in grain? | |
| Even He who reads the heart,— | |
| Knows what He gave and what we lost, | 5 |
| Sin’s forfeit, and redemption’s cost,— | |
| By a short pang of wonder cross’d | |
| Seems at the sight to start: | |
| |
| Yet ’twas not wonder, but His love | |
| Our wavering spirits would reprove, | 10 |
| That heaven-ward seem so free to move | |
| When earth can yield no more: | |
| Then from afar on God we cry; | |
| But should the mist of woe roll by, | |
| Not showers across an April sky | 15 |
| Drift when the storm is o’er, | |
| |
| Faster than those false drops and few | |
| Fleet from the heart, a worthless dew. | |
| What sadder scene can Angels view | |
| Than self-deceiving tears, | 20 |
| Pour’d idly over some dark page | |
| Of earlier life, through pride or rage | |
| The record of to-day engage, | |
| A woe for future years? | |
| |
| Spirits, that round the sick man’s bed | 25 |
| Watch’d, noting down each prayer he made, | |
| Were your unerring roll display’d, | |
| His pride of health to abase; | |
| Or, when soft showers in season fall | |
| Answering a famish’d nation’s call, | 30 |
| Should unseen fingers on the wall | |
| Our vows forgotten trace; | |
| |
| How should we gaze in trance of fear! | |
| Yet shines the light as thrilling clear | |
| From heaven upon that scroll severe, | 35 |
| “Ten cleans’d and one remain!” | |
| Nor surer would the blessing prove | |
| Of humbled hearts that own Thy love, | |
| Should choral welcome from above | |
| Visit our senses plain: | 40 |
| |
| Than by Thy placid voice and brow, | |
| With healing first, with comfort now, | |
| Turn’d upon him, who hastes to bow | |
| Before Thee, heart and knee; | |
| “O! thou, who only would’st be blest, | 45 |
| On thee alone My blessing rest! | |
| Rise, go thy way in peace, possess’d | |
| For evermore of Me.” | |
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