Poems (Hoffman)/Ethiopia
ETHIOPIA
Dark was her brow, and darkerThe depths of her liquid eyesAnd her hair was dark as the blacknessOf the moonless midnight skies,Her robe was the gorgeous colorsOf the Tropic's brazen shieldAnd costliest incense smolderedIn its Isis folds concealed,Dawn, noontide and evening together woveThe fabric she loved to wearAnd fashioned the rainbow crescentThat shone in her midnight hair,As she clasped in her hot embracesAnd bore through the jungle wildTo her tents in the tangled forestThe cursed and homeless child.
Darker then grew her visageAnd fiercer her deep eyes shoneAs the smoke from her pagan altarsCurled over her ivory throne,And the nations quailed before herAnd trembled beneath her frownNor dared to enter her empireOr gaze on her crescent crown,'Till desolate, feared, forgotten,She reigned in her realm aloneWith the cursed and homeless Canaan'Till they called her, the Great Unknown.Once the sweet singer of IsraelLinked with his melodyOf the pagan queen in her darknessA golden prophecy That shone in the stars above herAnd gleamed from her pagan sod,—"Soon, soon shall proud EthiopiaStretch forth her hands unto God."
Dark grew her brow and darkerGrew the darkness about her throneNo ray pierced the midnight blacknessNo star in her midnight shone,The suns of the burning TropicsFor centuries scorched her bloomBut they strove in vain to lightenWith one pale ray, her gloom.Lo! in the listening agesFrom the chords where it slumbered longIn the light of its glad fulfillmentAwakes the prophetic song,'Tis sung by the stars above her,'Tis harped from her teeming sodBeautiful, dark EthiopiaStretches her hands unto God.
Lo! she hath dashed her idolsAnd her pagan altars down,Robed in her gorgeous garmentsCrowned with her crescent crownShe stands with benighted Canaan,She turns from her gory sodShe looks to the stars above herAnd stretches her hands unto God.
A light on her midnight breakethA brightening, growing lightIt darts through her gloom and slowlyIllumines her fearful night, Her scepter was stained with crimsonVice lurked in her smile to marAnd over her glorious beautyBurned Crime's unsightly scar,And lo, from her pagan palaceGirt 'round with its burning zoneTo his Father's righteous dwellingCanaan is coming home.