O shame that Christian joins with Infidel
In learned search and curious-seeming art!
Burn we our books, so Christ's we be in heart,
Sooner than heaven should court the praise of hell!
Self-flattering age! to whom shall I not seem
Pained with hot thoughts, the preacher of a dream?

d.

CXVIII.

"I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce My servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols."

WEEP, Mother mine, and veil thine eyes with shame!
What was thy sin of old,

That men now give thy awful-sounding name
To the false prophet's fold?

Whose flock thy crosier claim.

Sure thou hast practised in the tongues unclean
Which Babel-masters teach;

Slighting the Paraclete's true flame serene,
The inimitative speech,

Which throned thee the world's queen.

But, should earth-dust, from court or school of men, Have dimmed thy bridal gear,

When Wrath next walks his rounds, and in Heaven's ken

Thy charge and works appear.

Ah! thou must SUFFER then!

CXIX.

THE BEASTS OF EPHESUS.

d.

My soul is among lions; and I lie even among the children of men, that are set on fire, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongues a sharp sword."

How long, O Lord of grace,

Must languish Thy true race,

In a forced friendship linked with Belial here;

With Mammon's brand of care,

And Baal pleading fair,

And the dog-breed who at Thy Temple jeer?

How long, O Lord, how long

Shall Cæsar do us wrong,

Laid but as steps to throne his mortal power?

While e'en our Angels stand

With helpless voice and hand, Scorned by proud Haman, in his triumph-hour.

'Tis said our seers discern

The destined bickerings stern,

In the dim distance, of Thy fiery train.
O nerve us in that woe!

For, where Thy wheels shall go,

We must be tried, the while Thy foes are slain.

CXX.

"I will give power unto My two witnesses, and they shall prophesy."

How shall a child of God fulfil

His vow to cleanse his soul from ill,
And raise on high his baptism-light,
Like Aaron's seed in ritual white,
And holy-tempered Nazarite?

8.

First, let him shun the haunts of vice,
Sin-feast, or heathen sacrifice;

Fearing the board of wealthy pride,
Or heretic, self-trusting guide,

Or where the adulterer's smiles preside.

Next, as he threads the maze of men,
Aye must he lift his witness, when
A sin is spoke in Heaven's dread face,
And none at hand of higher grace
The Cross to carry in his place.

But if he hears and sits him still,
First, he will lose his hate of ill;
Next, fear of sinning, after hate;
Small sins his heart then desecrate;
And last, despair persuades to great.

8.

JEREMIAH.

CXXI.

THEY say,

"Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans."

"The man is false, and falls away :"

Yet sighs my soul in secret for their pride, Tears are mine hourly food; and night and day I plead for them, and may not be denied.

They say,

"His words unnerve the warrior's hand, And dim the statesman's eye, and disunite The friends of Israel :" yet, in every land, My words, to Faith, are Peace, and Hope, and Might.

They say,

"The frenzied one is fain to see Glooms of his own; and gathering storms afar ;But dungeons deep, and fetters strong have we." Alas! heaven's lightning would ye chain and bar?

Ye scorners of th' Eternal! wait one hour;
In His seer's weakness ye shall see His power,