LORD, when thou didst come from Heaven,
Edom sought thee, from afar,
With her gold and incense given,
By the leading of a star;
Westward then, from Eden guiding,
Was the light of Bethlehem shed;
Like the pillared blaze abiding
O'er the wandering Hebrew's head.
Westward still, the world alluring,
Hath the risen Day-Star beamed.
And, the sinking soul assuring,
O'er the world's wide ocean streamed.
Westward still, the midnight breaking,
Westward still, its light be poured!
Heathen thy possession making,
Utmost lands thy dwelling, Lord!
Westward, where from giant fountains,
Oregon comes down in flood,
Westward to Missouri's mountains,
Or to wild Iowa's wood:
Where the broad Arkansas goeth,
Winding o'er savannahs wide;
Where, beyond old Huron, floweth
Many a strong eternal tide.
Westward, where the wavy prairie
Dark as slumbering ocean lies,
Let thy starlight, Son of Mary,
O'er the shadowed billows rise!
There, be heard ye herald voices
Till the Lord his glory shows, And the lonely place rejoices,
With the bloom of Sharon's rose.
Where the wilderness is lying,
And the trees of ages nod,
Westward, in the desert crying,
Make a highway for our God:
Westward-till the Church be kneeling
In the forest aisles so dim,
And the wildwood's arches pealing,
With the people's holy hymn!
Westward, still, oh Lord, in glory
Be thy bannered cross unfurled, Till from vale to mountain hoary, Rolls the anthem round the world; Reign, oh reign o'er every nation,
Reign, Redeemer, Father, King, And with songs of thy salvation, Let the wide creation ring!
RIGHT glad was I when unto me,
They said with one accord,
Oh let us up to Zion-hill,
The city of our Lord!
Our feet shall stand within thy gates,
Jerusalem, our home,
And to thy temples beauty-built,
Our wearied steps shall come.
Oh thither all the tribes go up,
The people of our God!
And there the golden censers smoke,
And music sounds abroad!
There incense-wreaths forever rise,
And there the Lord is known,
And there is set his judgment-seat,
His glory, and his throne!
Oh pray ye for Jerusalem,
Who blesseth her is blest;
Peace be within thy palaces,
And in thy temples rest!
And on her golden shrines be light,
And sunshine ever fair,
For there my father's children dwell;
Our fathers' God is there.
OFT when the eve-star, sinking into day,
Seems empire's planet on its westward way,
Comes, in soft light from antique window's groin,
The pure ideal, mitred saint of Cloyne!
Taught, from sweet childhood, to revere in thee
Earth's every virtue, writ in poesie,
Nigh did I leap, on Clio's calmer line,
To see thy story with our own entwine.
On Yale's full walls, no pictured shape to me
Like Berkeley's seemed, in priestly dignity,
Such as he stood, fatiguing, year by year,
In our behoof, dull prince and cavalier;
And dauntless still, as erst the Genoese;
Such as he wandered o'er the Indy seas
To vexed Bermoothes, witless that he went
Mid isles that beckoned to a continent.
Such there he seemed, the pure, the undefiled!
And meet the record! Though, perchance, I smiled
That those, in him, themselves will glorify,
Who reap his fields, but let his doctrine die,
Yet, let him stand: the world will note it well,
And Time shall thank them for the chronicle
By such confessed, Columbus of new homes
For song,
and Science with her thousand tomes.
Yes-pure apostle of our western lore,
Spoke the full heart, that now may breathe it more,
Still in those halls, where none without a sneer
Name the dear title of thy ghostly fear,
Stand up, bold bishop-in thy priestly vest;
Proof that the Church bore letters to the West!
HAST been where the full blossomed bay-tree is blowing With odors like Eden's around?
Hast seen where the broad-leaved palmetto is growing, And wild vines are fringing the ground?
Hast sat in the shade of catalpas, at noon,
And ate the cool gourds of their clime;
Or slept where magnolias were screening the moon,
And the mocking-bird sung her sweet rhyme?
And didst mark, in thy journey, at dew-dropping eve,
Some ruin peer high o'er thy way,
With rooks wheeling round it, and bushes to weave
A mantle for turrets so gray?
ye ask if some lord of the cavalier kind
Lived there, when the country was young?
And burned not the blood of a Christian, to find
How there the old prayer-bell had rung?
And did ye not glow, when they told ye-the Lord
Had dwelt in that thistle-grown pile;
And that bones of old Christians were under its sward,
That once had knelt down in its aisle ?
And had ye no tear-drops your blushes to steep
When ye thought-o'er your country so broad,
The bard seeks in vain for a mouldering heap,
Save only these churches of God?
O ye that shall pass by those ruins again,
Go kneel in their alleys and pray,
And not till their arches have echoed amen,
Rise up, and fare on in your way;
Pray God that those aisles may be crowded once more,
Those altars surrounded and spread,
While anthems and prayers are upsent as of yore,
As they take of the wine-cup and bread.
Ay, pray on thy knees, that each old rural fane
They have left to the bat and the mole,
May sound with the loud-pealing organ again,
And the full-swelling voice of the soul.
Peradventure, when next thou shalt journey thereby
Even-bells shall ring out on the air,
And the dim-lighted windows reveal to thine eye
The snowy-robed pastor at prayer.
Is the silent midnight watches,
List-thy bosom-door!
How it knocketh, knocketh, knocketh,
Knocketh evermore!
Say not 'tis thy pulse's beating;
'Tis thy heart of sin :
'Tis thy Saviour knocks, and crieth
Rise, and let me in!
Death comes down with reckless footstep
To the hall and hut:
Think you Death will stand a-knocking
Where the door is shut?
Jesus waiteth-waiteth-waiteth;
But thy door is fast!
Grieved, away thy Saviour goeth:
Death breaks in at last.
Then 'tis thine to stand-entreating
Christ to let thee in:
At the gate of heaven beating,
Wailing for thy sin.
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