Dread Guard! whose portal is another world,
Thy mandate never can be circumscribed;
Only that Hand thy car to being whirled,
And set thy lips, forevermore unbribed,
Can break the seal of silence; we look out,
And over both eternities, and waste
Our energies, to find some well-tried route
Out of life's labyrinth, where we may taste
The true nepenthe that disarms all doubt.

Beyond all human ken the key is kept;
Our prison is too strong, and will not break,
Our Keeper's eyes are those that never slept,
Yet never slept for love and our dear sake;
Touched by God's hand, the bolts will always yield;
We rule him; in our weakness, if we ask,
Our asking turns the desert to a field,
And shapes a coronal of every task.
A pestilence has struck this favored land—
Religion pleads in health; it now must take command.
The gods of Egypt, all are impotent,
The people beat the empty air in vain;
No orgie gains the purchase of content,
Their altars only mock the nation's pain.
The King has called a council to discuss
The best-laid methods of religious thought.
Of counselors, there is an overplus,
And many are the schemes that they have brought,
All conjured since they lost their way. The years
Had slowly passed, since God himself had spoke,
And hearts are human things, and their hot tears,
Melting their souls to harmony, in echoing murmur broke:

O Soul! that is all song,
O Heart! that is all love,
O Right! that knows no wrong,
O Arm! that is all strong,
Upon our bosoms move.

O Eye! that is all sight,
O Voice! that is all sound,
O Life! that is all might,
O Wing! that is all flight,
Where, where can you be found?

O Ear! that only hears,
O Voice! that only sings,
O Eye! that knows no tears,
O Time! that counts no years,
Lend us thy gift of wings.

O Faith! that wants no form,
O Hope! all unafraid,
O Sun! without a storm,
O Summer! always warm,
Where shall our hearts be stayed?

O Spirit! infinite,
O thou unchanging Word!
Whose echoes round us flit,
With all the past enlit,
O make thee to be heard!

So sang the gathered choral of the King,
And so, with saddened hearts, responded all
The gathered multitude; with what a spring
Is set the chords of Nature; and the call
From any searching soul a unit is
Of universal and insatiate thirst.
The longing story one may sing as his,
Responsive hearts all echo with the first,
Which shows how deep are all of our desires;
How earnestly we peer out in the dark!
How are we freighted, all, with latent fires!
How, on our souls and in our hearts, the Master leaves His mark!

There rose, from on the outskirts of the crowd,
One bowed with lengthened years, yet nobly bent
With the more potent weight of earnest thought;
His massive brain and princely bearing lent
A more than common strength to his clear eye,
As, on his shepherd's staff, his form was bent;
Near to the King, with faltering step he came,
And spake, as if a master spake, with all his soul aflame.

"Oh King, and sons of Lud! No pardon asks
Old Kohen for the words that leap his lips;
No earthly throne gives warrant to my voice;
But he, the God, of whom our fathers told,
The God of Noah; he, at whose command
The patriarch bent to labor; and till twice
A hundred harvest moons had waned, wrought on
The ark, and saved the seed of man to earth,
He, he, has spoken! and his words have sunk
So deeply in my heart I must be heard.—

"Thus saith the Lord: 'O truant sons of Lud,
Why grope ye in the dark, why not return
To the great Father's house? How have I called
And waited for an answer to my suit!
O sons of men, return! repent! believe!
Where have ye wandered, that ye have not heard
The voice of your Jehovah in the wind,
And on the storm and tempest, when in wrath
He thunders in the ears of men; repent!
And on the desert in the hot simoom
Writ fervent words to warn you of your way.

"'I am the God, of whom your fathers spake;
Out of all chaos did I call the earth,
And out of dust, your great ancestor made;
And hardly his clay swaddlings put on,
Ere from his rib I called his helpmeet forth,

"'Your mother Eve; I have bespoken wrath;
Yet, on the threshold of your life I placed
The ministry of love, and with my lips
I kissed the clay to life. How have I longed
To hold the race as I their fathers held,
Encircled in the Everlasting Arms;
But ye would not; ye are yourselves, a law,
To your own beings in my image made,
And ye must choose to live, to love, to learn.
How great is my compassion, and how long
I have kept watch, and waited for my lost!

"'My very anger is the throne of love.—
Because I could not lose the multitudes,
The myriads of millions yet unborn,
I spoke your father Noah into work,
And set afloat the remnant of his loins,
And oped the gates of Heaven to flood the earth.
I saw the race go down to watery graves,
In sorrow; and I saw a deeper wound
Had I but spared;