And is it so? Look at creation round!
See you how fair, how beautiful it is,
How form’d to bless, how exquisite to please?
We tread its wonders e’en beneath our feet,
We revel in its luxuries every hour,
And feast our every sense upon its charms.
Fit dwelling was it for a sinless race,
Form’d in the image of their parent God;
And ’twas for such he made it. Sad reverse!
What passes now in this so lovely scene?
What purpose serves this world so beautiful?
A vale of death, a prison-house of crime!
The sun that lightens, burns it – and the rain
That sheds luxuriant verdure o’er the soil,
Swells the wild torrent till its ruthless force
Buries whole regions in resistless ruin.
There’s not a gift of Providence, whose use,
Excessive or perverted, does not prove
A fruitful source of misery and death;
There’s scarce a worm but preys upon its fellow,
And man on all – but most upon himself.
Sorrow and pain have so possess’d the world,
That he who knows them not is deem’d unwise,
If he forget to expect them. All agree,
However differing else, or sad or gay,
All join to say it is an evil world,
Though He who made it once pronounc’d it good.
Can you contemplate such magnificence,
So fallen, so perverted, and not pray
That He who form’d it would renew his work,
And give it back to innocence and peace?
Can you? Then look at something still more sad,
More fallen, more perverted, more debas’d:
Look at the heart that throbs within your bosom!
Not e’en the pow’r of celestial grace
Has stay’d its wand’rings, or repress’d its pride.
What holy resolutions, heav’n-inspir’d,
Ending in disappointment and remorse!
Mark how each pray’r you breathe is deeply ting’d
With some impatient, unsubmitting wish,
While e’en the tear of penitence you shed
Falls hard by that which flows from wounded pride.
How bitter, yet how fruitless, is the hour
That sinks the soul beneath its weight of sin,
And leaves it scarce less sinful than before!
How short the days of spiritual joy,
How long the nights of cold and careless distance!
What heaven-aspiring energies borne down,
And stifled in a perishable frame!
Is this the portrait of a heart you know?
I never learn’d the secrets of but one –
If yours be like it, you have need to pray
That time may be when sin shall be no more.
Death may rid you this your cumbrous load,
But think how many will be left to bear it.
Can we reflect that every child of God
Bears the same struggle, and not wish it done?
Well may we tremble for the sinner’s doom,
But little boots it to delay the hour.
See how they heap the measure of their guilt,
Crime upon crime, to aggravate their fate!
Each hour adds something to the sum of ill;
The punishment must fill an equal measure.
Hasten, O Lord, to close the fearful scene!
Hasten to claim the kingdom thou hast won!
Restore thy fair creation to itself,
To what it was before it learn’d to sin,
To what its gracious Master died to make it!
How long, how long, must we behold thy laws
Broken, insulted, trampled under foot?
How long – O worse affliction! must we feel
That we, who love thee, help to break them too?
While sin remains, we are but half redeem’d.
Yes, had I but one other prayer to breathe,
But one small remnant of exhausted breath,
I’d spend it thus, and thus should be my prayer,
“So come, Lord Jesus, quickly, quickly come!”
(Caroline Fry)
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Based on Topics: God Poems, World Poems, Night Poems, Sadness Poems, Time Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Soul Poems, War & Peace Poems, Joy & Excitement Poems, Fairness Poems, Hope PoemsBased on Keywords: pronounc, prison-house, preys, cumbrous, aggravate, perverted, resolutions, debas, perishable, heaven-aspiring, unsubmitting