A STRONG CITY
For them that hope in Thee.... Thou shalt hide
them in the secret of Thy face, from the disturbance of men.
Thou shalt protect them in Thy tabernacle from the
contradiction of tongues.
Blessed be the Lord, for He hath shewn His wonderful
mercy to me in a fortified city.--_Psalm xxx._
Beauty and splendor were on every hand:
Yet strangely crawled dark shadows down the lanes,
Twisting across the fields, like dragon-shapes
That smote the air with blackness, and devoured
The life of light, and choked the smiling world
Till it grew livid with a sudden age--
The death of hope.
O squandered happiness;
Vain dust of misery powdering life's fresh flower!
The sky was holy, but the earth was not.
Men ruled, but ruled in vain; since wretchedness
Of soul and body, for the mass of men,
Made them like dead leaves in an idle drift
Around the plough of progress as it drove
Sharp through the glebe of modern days, to plant
A civilized world. Ay; civilized--but not Christian!
Civilization is a clarion voice
Crying in the wilderness; a prophet-word
Still unfulfilled.
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