Zinzendorff and Other Poems/"Let there be light"
"LET THERE BE LIGHT."
A Mission Hymn.
Light for the dreary vales
Of ice-bound Labrador!
Where the frost-king breathes on the slippery sails
Till the mariner wakes no more,
Lift high the lamp that never fails
To that dark and sterile shore.
Light for the forest child!
An outcast though he be
From haunts where the sun of his childhood smiled,
And the country of the free,—
Pour the hope of Heaven o'er his desert-wild,
For what home on earth has he?
Light for the cliffs of Greece!
Light for that trampled clime!
Where the wrath of the Spoiler refused to cease
Ere it wrecked the boast of time,—
See! the Moslem hath dealt the gift of peace,
Grudge ye your boon sublime?
Light on the Hindoo shed!
On the maddening idol-train;
The flame of the Suttee is dire and red,
And the Fakir faints with pain,
And the dying moan on their cheerless bed
By the Ganges laved in vain.
Light for the Persian sky!
The Sophi's wisdom fades,
And the pearls of Ormus are poor to buy
Armour when Death invades;
Hark! Hark! to the sainted martyr's sigh
From Ararat's mournful shades.
Light for the Burman vales!
For the islands of the sea!
For the land where the slave-ship fills its sails
With sighs of agony,
And her kidnapped babes the mother wails,
'Neath the lone banana-tree.
Light for the ancient race
Exiled from Zion's rest!
Homeless they roam from place to place,
Benighted and opprest;
They shudder at Sinai's fearful base,—
Guide them to Calvary's breast.
Light for the darkened earth!
Long midnight fleets away,
The Gospel day-star springs to birth,
Whose bright, prelusive ray
Shall glow, till a glorious morning brings
Eternity's cloudless day.