And as on Israel’s awe-struck ear
   The voice exceeding loud,
The trump, that angels quake to hear,
   Thrilled from the deep, dark cloud;

So, when the Spirit of our God
   Came down His flock to find,
A voice from Heaven was heard abroad,
   A rushing, mighty wind.

Nor doth the outward ear alone
   At that high warning start;
Conscience gives back th’ appalling tone;
   ’Tis echoed in the heart.

It fills the Church of God; it fills
   The sinful world around;
Only in stubborn hearts and wills
   No place for it is found.

To other strains our souls are set: 
   A giddy whirl of sin
Fills ear and brain, and will not let
   Heaven’s harmonies come in.

Come Lord, Come Wisdom, Love, and Power,
   Open our ears to hear;
Let us not miss th’ accepted hour;
   Save, Lord, by Love or Fear.

MONDAY IN WHITSUN-WEEK

So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city.  Genesis xi. 8

Since all that is not Heaven must fade,
Light be the hand of Ruin laid
   Upon the home I love: 
With lulling spell let soft Decay
Steal on, and spare the giant sway,
   The crash of tower and grove.

Far opening down some woodland deep
In their own quiet glade should sleep
   The relics dear to thought,
And wild-flower wreaths from side to side
Their waving tracery hang, to hide
   What ruthless Time has wrought.

Such are the visions green and sweet
That o’er the wistful fancy fleet
   In Asia’s sea-like plain,
Where slowly, round his isles of sand,
Euphrates through the lonely land
   Winds toward the pearly main.

Slumber is there, but not of rest;
There her forlorn and weary nest
   The famished hawk has found,
The wild dog howls at fall of night,
The serpent’s rustling coils affright
   The traveller on his round.

What shapeless form, half lost on high,
Half seen against the evening sky,
   Seems like a ghost to glide,
And watch, from Babel’s crumbling heap,
Where in her shadow, fast asleep,
   Lies fallen imperial Pride?

With half-closed eye a lion there
Is basking in his noontide lair,
   Or prowls in twilight gloom. 
The golden city’s king he seems,
Such as in old prophetic dreams
   Sprang from rough ocean’s womb.

But where are now his eagle wings,
That sheltered erst a thousand kings,
   Hiding the glorious sky
From half the nations, till they own
No holier name, no mightier throne? 
   That vision is gone by.

Quenched is the golden statue’s ray,
The breath of heaven has blown away
   What toiling earth had piled,
Scattering wise heart and crafty hand,
As breezes strew on ocean’s sand
   The fabrics of a child.