| |
| ALL grim and soiled and brown and tan, | |
| I saw a Strong One, in his wrath, | |
| Smiting the godless shrines of man | |
| Along his path. | |
| |
| The Church beneath her trembling dome | 5 |
| Essayed in vain her ghostly charm: | |
| Wealth shook within his gilded home | |
| With strange alarm. | |
| |
| Fraud from his secret chambers fled | |
| Before the sunlight bursting in: | 10 |
| Sloth drew her pillow o’er her head | |
| To drown the din. | |
| |
| “Spare,” Art implored, “yon holy pile; | |
| That grand old time-worn turret spare:” | |
| Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle | 15 |
| Cried out, “Forbear!” | |
| |
| Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind, | |
| Groped for his old accustomed stone, | |
| Leaned on his staff, and wept to find | |
| His seat o’erthrown. | 20 |
| |
| Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes, | |
| O’erhung with paly locks of gold,— | |
| “Why smite,” he asked in sad surprise, | |
| “The fair, the old?” | |
| |
| Yet louder rang the Strong One’s stroke, | 25 |
| Yet nearer flashed his axe’s gleam; | |
| Shuddering and sick of heart I woke, | |
| As from a dream. | |
| |
| I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled,— | |
| The Waster seemed the Builder too; | 30 |
| Upspringing from the ruined Old | |
| I saw the New. | |
| |
| ’T was but the ruin of the bad,— | |
| The wasting of the wrong and ill; | |
| Whate’er of good the old time had | 35 |
| Was living still. | |
| |
| Calm grew the brows of him I feared, | |
| The frown which awed me passed away, | |
| And left behind a smile which cheered | |
| Like breaking day. | 40 |
| |
| The grain grew green on battle-plains, | |
| O’er swarded war-mounds grazed the cow; | |
| The slave stood forging from his chains | |
| The spade and plough. | |
| |
| Where frowned the fort, pavilions gay | 45 |
| And cottage windows, flower-entwined, | |
| Looked out upon the peaceful bay | |
| And hills behind. | |
| |
| Through vine-wreathed cups with wine once red, | |
| The lights on brimming crystal fell, | 50 |
| Drawn, sparkling, from the rivulet head | |
| And mossy well. | |
| |
| Through prison-walls, like Heaven-sent hope, | |
| Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams strayed, | |
| And with the idle gallows-rope | 55 |
| The young child played. | |
| |
| Where the doomed victim in his cell | |
| Had counted o’er the weary hours, | |
| Glad school-girls, answering to the bell, | |
| Came crowned with flowers. | 60 |
| |
| Grown wiser for the lesson given, | |
| I fear no longer, for I know | |
| That where the share is deepest driven | |
| The best fruits grow. | |
| |
| The outworn rite, the old abuse, | 65 |
| The pious fraud transparent grown, | |
| The good held captive in the use | |
| Of wrong alone,— | |
| |
| These wait their doom, from that great law | |
| Which makes the past time serve to-day; | 70 |
| And fresher life the world shall draw | |
| From their decay. | |
| |
| O backward-looking son of time! | |
| The new is old, the old is new, | |
| The cycle of a change sublime | 75 |
| Still sweeping through. | |
| |
| So wisely taught the Indian seer; | |
| Destroying Seva, forming Brahm, | |
| Who wake by turn Earth’s love and fear, | |
| Are one, the same. | 80 |
| |
| Idly as thou, in that old day | |
| Thou mournest, did thy sire repine; | |
| So, in his time, thy child grown gray | |
| Shall sigh for thine. | |
| |
| But life shall on and upward go; | 85 |
| The eternal step of Progress beats | |
| To that great anthem, calm and slow, | |
| Which God repeats. | |
| |
| Take heart!—the Waster builds again,— | |
| A charmèd life old Goodness hath; | 90 |
| The tares may perish,—but the grain | |
| Is not for death. | |
| |
| God works in all things; all obey | |
| His first propulsion from the night: | |
| Wake thou and watch!—the world is gray | 95 |
| With morning light! | |
| |
