Collected Works (Vol. I)

68 JEPHTHAH PROPHET. I see a dove departing to the hills: CHORUS, I pray it bring an olive-branch to us. PROPHET. The god has overcome me; I am silent. CHORUS. He lies as one lies dead; none wakens him. Nor life nor death must touch him now: beware! ELEAZAR. Beware now, all ye old wise men, of this. For high things spoken and unjustly heard, Or heard and turned aside, are fruitless words, Or bear a blossom evil and abhorred, Lest God be mocked. Consider well of this. CHORUS. A sword, a sword, to smite our foes withal ! ELEAZAR. A help shall come from desert lands to us. CHORUS. Toward what end? much, But uttermost destruction more, for we Llave no strong hope in any hand of man: God is our refuge and our tower of strength. In Him if any man abide—But if He put his faith in horsemen, or the sword, The sword he trusted shall be for an end. For present help is EVBAZAR. But evils fall like rain upon the land. CHORUS. Let us not call the hail to give us peace. ELEAZAR, Nor on the sun, lest he too eat us up. CHORUS. The heart of a man as the sea Beats hither and thither to find Fase for the limbs long free, Light for the stormy mind, A way for the soul to flee, A charm for the lips to bind ; And the struggle is keen as the strife to be, And the heart is tossed by the thankless wind. ELEAZAR, Nay, for a man’s sure purpose is of Gad. CHORUS. The large pale limbs of the earth are tanned With the sun and the sea and the yellow sand ; And the face of earth is dark with love Of the lords of hell and the spirits above That move in the foggy air of night, And the spirit of God, most like a dove, Hovers, and lingers, and wings his flight, Spurned and rejected and lost to sight ; But we desire him, a holy bird, And we turn eyes to the hollow hills; For God is strong, and His iron word Mocks at the gods of the woods and rills. For our God is as a fire That consumeth every one That is underneath the sun. We, for uttermost desire, Must abase, with rent attire, Souls and bodies to His throne, Where above the starry choir Stands the jasper, where alone Vivid seraphim respire Perfumes of a precious stone, Where beneath His feet the dire World of shells is pashed with mire, And the evil spirits’ ire Steams and fumes within the zoné Girt with minaret and spire Broken, burst, and overthrown, Dusty, and defiled, and dun, Palled with smoke of fruitless altars