Robert Norwood
Threatens, His lightning cleaves the clouds apart
To show an awful Face
The Judge is in His place
Of Judgment! Oh, the love
That we have lost! Above,
Beneath and all around us sounds the cry
Of Rachel weeping over little hands
And little feet! Her babes are dead! You, I,
Alone are guilty; for while error stands
Must all the starry Christs be crucified!
Nay, do not hang your head :
Though Christs be crucified,
And Rachel s babes be dead,
One river floweth wide
Out of the urge of God ;
Of that eternal stream
Its mother-bosom broad
With vision and with dream
Are you, Comrade and I !
Yea, all its ancient shores
That river runneth by
Have we touched. Where it pours
Past leagues of desert sand,
Jungles and miry places,
Palms of an unknown land,
Ferns and their fronded faces,
Have we gone forth from God !
Where slimy serpents crawl,
And crocodiles are torpid in the sun;
Where snarling tigers sprawl,
And elephants come slowly one by one
Down the yellow ridges
Of the banyan s broken bridges
To the river where the little shells are strawed;
Where chattering monkeys leap,
And the flamingo struts among the reeds;
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