Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/21

And ranging in mute circle on the lawn
Beside his dwelling. There a towering line
Of warriors gather'd, such as ne'er had blench'd
To follow where he pointed, tho' the earth
Were saturate with blood, or the keen lance
Of ambush glitter'd thro' the quivering leaves.
Now, sad of heart, with heads declin'd they stood,
As men who lose the battle. Flocking still,
Came mothers with their sons. A nation mourn'd
Like one vast family. No word was spoke,
As when the friends of desolated Job,
Finding the line of language all too short
To fathom woe like his, sublimely paid
That highest homage at the throne of Grief,
Deep silence.
                            Now the infant morning rais'd
Her rosy eyelids. But no soft breeze mov'd
The forest lords to shake the dews of sleep
From their green coronals.
                             The curtaining mist
Hung o'er the quiet river, and it seem'd
That Nature found the summer night so sweet,
That mid the stillness of her deep repose
She shunn'd the wakening of the King of Day.
—But there, beneath a broad and branching Elm
Stood forth the holy man, in act to speak.
There was a calmness on his pallid brow,
That told of heaven. His stainless life had flow'd
Pure as his creed. Had the whole warring world
With passion quaked, he would have made himself
A green oasis 'mid the strife of tongues,
And there have dwelt secure.