Thou thrice denied, yet thrice belov’d,¹¹⁵¹¹⁵St. John xxi. 15-17.

Watch by Thine own forgiven friend;

In sharpest perils faithful prov’d,

Let his soul love Thee to the end.

The prayer is heard — else why so deep

His slumber on the eve of death?

And wherefore smiles he in his sleep

As one who drew celestial breath?

He loves and is belov’d again —

Can his soul choose but be at rest?

Sorrow hath fled away, and Pain

Dares not invade the guarded nest.

He dearly loves, and not alone:

For his wing’d thoughts are soaring high

Where never yet frail heart was known

To breathe its vain Affection’s sigh.

He loves and weeps — but more than tears

Have seal’d Thy welcome and his love —

One look lives in him, and endears

Crosses and wrongs where’er he rove:

That gracious chiding look,¹¹⁶¹¹⁶St. Luke xxii. 61. Thy call

To win him to himself and Thee,

Sweetening the sorrow of his fall

Which else were ru’d too bitterly.

E’en through the veil of sheep it shines,

The memory of that kindly glance; —

The Angel watching by, divines

And spares awhile his blissful trance.

Or haply to his native lake

His vision wafts him back, to talk

With Jesus, ere His flight He take,

As in that solemn evening walk,

When to the bosom of His friend,

The Shepherd, He whose name is Good.

Did His dear lambs and sheep commend,

Both bought and nourish’d with His blood:

Then laid on him th’ inverted tree,

Which firm embrac’d with heart and arm,

Might cast o’er hope and memory,

O’er life and death, its awful charm.

With brightening heart he bears it on,

His passport through this eternal gates,

To his sweet home — so nearly won,

He seems, as by the door he waits,

The unexpressive notes to hear

Of angel song and angel motion,

Rising and falling on the ear

Like waves in Joy’s unbounded ocean. —

His dream is chang’d — the Tyrant’s voice

Calls to that last of glorious deeds —

But as he rises to rejoice,

Not Herod but an Angel leads.

He dreams he sees a lamp flash bright,

Glancing around his prison room —

But ’tis a gleam of heavenly light

That fills up all the ample gloom.

The flame, that in a few short years

Deep through the chambers of the dead

Shall pierce, and dry the fount of tears,

Is waving o’er his dungeon-bed.

Touch’d he upstarts — his chains unbind —

Through darksome vault, up massy stair,

His dizzy, doubting footsteps wind

To freedom and cool moonlight air.

Then all himself, all joy and calm,

Though for a while his hand forego,

Just as it touch’d, the martyr’s palm,

He turns him to his task below;

The pastoral staff, the keys of Heaven,

To wield a while in grey-haired might,

Then from his cross to spring forgiven,

And follow Jesus out of sight.