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GUNPOWDER TREASON
A thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome. Acts xxiii. 11.
Beneath the burning eastern sky The Cross was rais’d at morn: The widow’d Church to weep stood by, The world, to hate and scorn. |
Now, journeying westward, evermore We know the lonely Spouse By the dear mark her Saviour bore Trac’d on her patient brows. |
At Rome she wears it, as of old Upon th’ accursed hill: By monarchs clad in gems and gold, She goes a mourner still. |
She mourns that tender hearts should bend Before a meaner shrine, And upon Saint or Angel spend The love that should be thine. |
By day and night her sorrows fall Where miscreant hands and rude Have stain’d her pure ethereal pall With many a martyr’s blood. |
And yearns not her parental heart, To hear their secret sighs, Upon whose doubting way apart Bewildering shadows rise? |
Who to her side in peace would cling, But fear to wake, and find What they had deem’d her genial wing Was Error’s soothing blind. |
She treasures up each throbbing prayer: Come, trembler, come and pour Into her bosom all thy care, For she has balm in store. |
Her gentle teaching sweetly blends With this clear light of Truth The aerial gleam that Fancy lends To solemn thoughts in youth. — |
If thou hast lov’d, in hours of gloom, To dream the dead are near, And people all the lonely room With guardian spirits dear, |
Dream on the soothing dream at will: The lurid mist is o’er, That show’d the righteous suffering still Upon th’ eternal shore. |
If with thy heart the strains accord, That on His altar-throne Highest exalt thy glorious Lord, Yet leave Him most thine own; |
Oh, come to our Communion Feast: There present, in the heart As in the hands, th’ eternal Priest Will His true self impart. — |
Thus, should thy soul misgiving turn Back to th’ enchanted air, Solace and warning thou mayst learn From all that tempts thee there. |
And, oh! by all the pangs and fears Fraternal spirits know, When for an elder’s shame the tears Of wakeful anguish flow, |
Speak gently of our sister’s fall: Who knows but gentle love May win her at our patient call The surer way to prove? |
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