Zinzendorff and Other Poems/"This is not your rest"
"THIS IS NOT YOUR REST."
When Heaven's unerring pencil writes, on every pilgrim's breast,
Its passport to Time's changeful shore, "lo, this is not your rest,"
Why build ye towers, ye fleeting ones? why bowers of fragrance rear!
As if the self-deceiving soul might find its Eden here.
In vain! In vain! wild storms will rise and o'er your fabrics sweep,
Yet when loud thunders wake the wave, and deep replies to deep,
When in your path, Hope's broken prison, doth shed its parting ray,
Spring up and fix your tearful eye on undeclining day.
If like an ice-bolt to the heart, frail Friendship's altered eye
Admits these rosy wreaths are dead, it promis'd could not die,
Lift, lift to an Eternal Friend, the agonizing prayer,
The souls that put their trust in Him, shall never know despair.
If Fancy, she who bids young Thought, its freshest incense bring,
By stern reality rebuk'd, should fold her stricken wing,
There is a brighter, broader realm than she hath yet reveal'd,
From flesh-girt man's exploring eye, and anxious ear conceal'd.
Earth is Death's palace: to his court he summons great and small,
The crown'd, the homeless and the slave, are but his minions all;
We turn us shrinking from the truth, the close pursuit we fly,
But faultering on the grave's dark brink, do lay us down and die.