Poetry Archives

And looking up to heaven, He sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha,
that is, Be opened.  St. Mark vii. 34.


The Son of God in doing good
   Was fain to look to Heaven and sigh:
And shall the heirs of sinful blood
   Seek joy unmixed in charity?
God will not let Love’s work impart
Full solace, lest it steal the heart;
Be thou content in tears to sow,
Blessing, like Jesus, in thy woe:

He looked to Heaven, and sadly sighed—
   What saw my gracious Saviour there,
“With fear and anguish to divide
   The joy of Heaven-accepted prayer?
So o’er the bed where Lazarus slept
He to His Father groaned and wept:
What saw He mournful in that grave,
Knowing Himself so strong to save?”

O’erwhelming thoughts of pain and grief
   Over His sinking spirit sweep;—
What boots it gathering one lost leaf
   Out of yon sere and withered heap,
Where souls and bodies, hopes and joys,
All that earth owns or sin destroys,
Under the spurning hoof are cast,
Or tossing in th’ autumnal blast?

The deaf may hear the Saviour’s voice,
   The fettered tongue its chain may break;
But the deaf heart, the dumb by choice,
   The laggard soul, that will not wake,
The guilt that scorns to be forgiven;—
These baffle e’en the spells of Heaven;
In thought of these, His brows benign
Not e’en in healing cloudless shine.

No eye but His might ever bear
   To gaze all down that drear abyss,
Because none ever saw so clear
   The shore beyond of endless bliss:
The giddy waves so restless hurled,
The vexed pulse of this feverish world,
He views and counts with steady sight,
Used to behold the Infinite.

But that in such communion high
   He hath a fount of strength within,
Sure His meek heart would break and die,
   O’erburthened by His brethren’s sin;
Weak eyes on darkness dare not gaze,
It dazzles like the noonday blaze;
But He who sees God’s face may brook
On the true face of Sin to look.

What then shall wretched sinners do,
   When in their last, their hopeless day,
Sin, as it is, shall meet their view,
   God turn His face for aye away?
Lord, by Thy sad and earnest eye,
When Thou didst look to Heaven and sigh:
Thy voice, that with a word could chase
The dumb, deaf spirit from his place;

As Thou hast touched our ears, and taught
   Our tongues to speak Thy praises plain,
Quell Thou each thankless godless thought
   That would make fast our bonds again.
From worldly strife, from mirth unblest,
Drowning Thy music in the breast,
From foul reproach, from thrilling fears,
Preserve, good Lord, Thy servants’ ears.

From idle words, that restless throng
   And haunt our hearts when we would pray,
From Pride’s false chime, and jarring wrong,
   Seal Thou my lips, and guard the way:
For Thou hast sworn, that every ear,
Willing or loth, Thy trump shall hear,
And every tongue unchained be
To own no hope, no God, but Thee.