Poetry Archives

When Herod would have brought him forth, the same night
Peter was sleeping.  Acts xii. 26.


Thou thrice denied, yet thrice beloved,
   Watch by Thine own forgiven friend;
In sharpest perils faithful proved,
   Let his soul love Thee to the end.

The prayer is heard—else why so deep
   His slumber on the eve of death?
And wherefore smiles he in his sleep
   As one who drew celestial breath?

He loves and is beloved again—
   Can his soul choose but be at rest?
Sorrow hath fled away, and Pain
   Dares not invade the guarded nest.

He dearly loves, and not alone:
   For his winged thoughts are soaring high
Where never yet frail heart was known
   To breathe its vain Affection’s sigh.

He loves and weeps—but more than tears
   Have sealed Thy welcome and his love—
One look lives in him, and endears
   Crosses and wrongs where’er he rove:

That gracious chiding look, Thy call
   To win him to himself and Thee,
Sweetening the sorrow of his fall
   Which else were rued too bitterly.

E’en through the veil of sheep it shines,
   The memory of that kindly glance;—
The Angel watching by, divines
   And spares awhile his blissful trance.

Or haply to his native lake
   His vision wafts him back, to talk
With JESUS, ere His flight He take,
   As in that solemn evening walk,

When to the bosom of His friend,
   The Shepherd, He whose name is Good.
Did His dear lambs and sheep commend,
   Both bought and nourished with His blood:

Then laid on him th’ inverted tree,
   Which firm embraced with heart and arm,
Might cast o’er hope and memory,
   O’er life and death, its awful charm.

With brightening heart he bears it on,
   His passport through this eternal gates,
To his sweet home—so nearly won,
   He seems, as by the door he waits,

The unexpressive notes to hear
   Of angel song and angel motion,
Rising and falling on the ear
   Like waves in Joy’s unbounded ocean.—

His dream is changed—the Tyrant’s voice
   Calls to that last of glorious deeds—
But as he rises to rejoice,
   Not Herod but an Angel leads.

He dreams he sees a lamp flash bright,
   Glancing around his prison room—
But ’tis a gleam of heavenly light
   That fills up all the ample gloom.

The flame, that in a few short years
   Deep through the chambers of the dead
Shall pierce, and dry the fount of tears,
   Is waving o’er his dungeon-bed.

Touched he upstarts—his chains unbind—
   Through darksome vault, up massy stair,
His dizzy, doubting footsteps wind
   To freedom and cool moonlight air.

Then all himself, all joy and calm,
   Though for a while his hand forego,
Just as it touched, the martyr’s palm,
   He turns him to his task below;

The pastoral staff, the keys of Heaven,
   To wield a while in grey-haired might,
Then from his cross to spring forgiven,
   And follow JESUS out of sight.