Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/36

Dost rest not, night or day,—The morning stars,
When first they sang o'er young Creation's birth,
Heard thy deep anthem, and those wrecking fires
That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve
This solid earth, shall find Jehovah's name
Graven, as with a thousand diamond spears
On thine unending volume.
                                          Every leaf
That lifts itself within thy wide domain,
Doth gather greenness from thy living spray,
Yet tremble at the baptism.—Lo!—yon birds
Do boldly venture near, and bathe their wing
Amid thy mist and foam. 'Tis meet for them,
To touch thy garment's hem, and lightly stir
The snowy leaflets of thy vapour wreath,
For they may sport unharmed amid the cloud,
Or listen at the echoing gate of heaven,
Without reproof. But as for us, it seems
Scarce lawful, with our broken tones, to speak
Familiarly of thee.—Methinks, to tint
Thy glorious features with our pencil's point,
Or woo thee to the tablet of a song
Were profanation.
                         Thou dost make the soul
A wondering witness of thy majesty,
But as it presses with delirious joy
To pierce thy vestibule, dost chain its step,
And tame its rapture, with the humbling view
Of its own nothingness, bidding it stand
In the dread presence of the Invisible,
As if to answer to its God, through thee.