Page:Poems Sigourney, 1834.pdf/189

Speak of the God who "warneth every where
Men to repent," and of that fearful day
When he shall judge the world. Loud tumult wakes,
The tide of strong emotion hoarsely swells,
And that blest voice is silent. They have mocked
At heaven's high messenger, and he departs
From the wild circle. But his graceful hand
Points to an altar, with its mystic scroll—
"The unknown God."—Oh Athens! is it so?
Thou who hast crowned thyself with woven rays
As a divinity, and called the world
Thy pilgrim-worshipper, dost thou confess
Such ignorance and shame? The unknown God.
Why all thy hillocks and resounding streams
Do boast their diety, and every house,
Yea, every beating heart within thy walls
May choose its temple and its priestly train,
Victim and garland, and appointed rite;
Thou makest the gods of every realm thine own,
Fostering with maddened hospitality
All forms of idol worship. Can it be
That still thou foundst not Him who is so near
To every one of us, in "whom we live,
And move, and have a being?" Found not Him
Of whom thy poets spake with childlike awe ?
    And thou, Philosophy, whose art refined
Did aim to pierce the labyrinth of Fate,
And compass with a finespun sophist web
This mighty universe—didst thou fall short
Of the Upholding Cause? The Unknown God.
Thou, who didst smile to find the admiring world
Crouch as a pupil to thee, wert thou blind?
Blinder than he, who in his humble cot,
With hardened hand, his daily labour done,
Turneth the page of Jesus, and doth read,
With toil, perchance, that the trim schoolboy scorns,