Page:In war time, and other poems (IA inwartimepoems00whitrich).pdf/20

"EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT."

(LUTHER'S HYMN.)

We wait beneath the furnace-blast
The pangs of transformation;
Not painlessly doth God recast
And mould anew the nation.
Hot burns the fire
Where wrongs expire;
Nor spares the hand
That from the land
Uproots the ancient evil.

The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared
Its bloody rain is dropping;