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FORESHADOWINGS.
- OREMUS! Oremus! Look down on us, Father!
- Like visions of Patmos Thy last judgments gather
- The angels of doom, in bright, terrible beauty,
- Rise up from their thrones to fulfil their stern duty.
- Woe to us, woe! the thunders have spoken,
- The first of the mystical seals hath been broken.
I.
- Through the cleft thunder‐cloud the weird wierd coursers are rushing—
- Their hoofs will strike deep in the hearts they are crushing;
- And the crown’d and the proud of the old kingly races
- Fall down at the vision, like stars from their places:
- Oremus! Oremus! The pale earth is heark’ning;
- Already the spirit‐steeds round us are dark’ning.
II.
- With crown and with bow, on his white steed immortal,
- The Angel of Wrath passes first through the portal;
- But faces grow paler, and hush’d is earth’s laughter,
- When on his pale steed comes the Plague Spirit after.
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- Oremus! Oremus! His poison‐breath slayeth;
- The red will soon fade from each bright lip that prayeth.
III.
- Now, with nostrils dilated and thunder hoofs crashing,
- On rushes the war‐steed, his lurid eyes flashing;
- There is blood on the track where his long mane is streaming,
- There is death where the sword of his rider is gleaming.
- Woe to the lands where that red steed is flying!
- There tyrants are warring, and heroes are dying.
IV.
- Oh! the golden‐hair’d children reck nought but their playing,
- Thro’ the rich fields of corn with their young mothers straying;
- And the strong‐hearted men, with their muscles of iron,
- What reck they of ills that their pathway environ?
- There’s a tramp like a knell—a cold shadow gloometh—
- Woe! ’tis the black steed of Famine that cometh
V.
- At the breath of its rider the green earth is blasted,
- And childhood’s frail form droops down pallid, and wasted;
- The soft sunny hair falleth dank on the arm
- Of the mother, whose love shields no longer from harm:
- For strength is scarce left her to weep o’er the dying,
- Ere dead by the loved one the mother is lying.
VI.
- But can we only weep, when above us thus lour
- The death‐bearing wings of the angels of power;
- When around are the arrows of pestilence flying—
- Around, the pale heaps of the famine‐struck lying
- —No, brother of sorrow, when life’s light is weakest,
- Look up, it is nigh the redemption thou seekest.
VII.
- Still WORK, though the tramp of the weird spirit‐horses,
- Fall dull on the ear, like the clay upon corses;
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- Still Freedom must send forth her young heroes glowing,
- Though her standard be red with their life‐current flowing;
- Still the preacher must cast forth the seed, as God’s sower,
- Though he perish like grass at the scythe of the mower.
VIII.
- Still do the Lord’s work through life’s tragical drama,
- Though weeping goes upward like weeping at Rama;
- The path may be thorny, but Spirit eyes see us;
- The cross may be heavy, but Death will soon free us:
- Still, strong in Christ’s power we’ll chant the Hosanna,
- Fling down Christ’s defiance—Υπαγε Σατανα!
IX.
- I see in a vision the shadowy portal,
- That leadeth to regions of glory immortal;
- I see the pale forms from the seven wounds bleeding,
- Which up to God’s Throne the bright angels are leading;
- I see the crown placed on each saint bending lowly,
- While sounds the Trisagion—Holy, thrice Holy!
X.
- I have Paradise dreams of a band with palm‐branches,
- Whose wavings give back their gold harps’ resonances,
- And a jewelled‐walled city, where walketh in splendour
- Each one who his life for God’s truth did surrender.
- Who would weep their death‐doom, if such bliss we inherit,
- When the veil of the human falls off from the spirit?
XI.
- The Christian may shrink from the last scenes of trial,
- And the woes yet unknown of each mystical vial;
- But the hosts of Jehovah will gather beside him,
- The rainbow‐crowned angel stoop downward to guide him;
- And to him, who as hero and martyr hath striven,
- Will the Crown, and the Throne, and the Palm‐branch be given.
XII.
