THE MOURNING SHEPHERDS

The tambour’ is silent, O god of the Nile!

The harp has been hung in acacian shade.

We are bowed to the earth, we are broken and bent,

And the blade of our fathers in dust has been laid.

We came, as the simoom creeps over the plain;

We came, as the tiger its covert forsakes;

As the hurricane brushes the dust from the brakes;

As the lightning leaps out and the thunder-god shakes.

We are shorn of our strength as with plague we are smote;

The axe has been wrenched from the hands that are brawn,

And the arms whose strong sinews till now were unbent

Have been broken as brittles; our prowess is gone.

O! thou bright shining god! with thy scintles of gold;

If thy children have gathered the glow of thy face,

If thy kisses, ere warmed to the lips that are cold,

O we pray! let us feel thy impassioned embrace.

We are journeying forth to the cradle of morn,

Where thy lids feel the weight of their slumbering still;

We would kneel at thy bed where the seasons are born,

And learn from thy lips the whole law of thy will.

Have we sinned in thy sight? have we slackened our pace?

Are we paying the forfeit in wormwood of shame?

We draw nearer to thee, and our lives we would place

In the hands of the Maker, that out of thy flame

We may gather that fire that shall glow with thy love;

And will never grow dim through the future of years,

That shall make us like thee, and our fealty prove

‘ Till we learn to forget this dark trackhood of tears.

As we turn to the East, wilt thou smile on our way?

Wilt thou lessen the distance between us and thee?

Or our hearts remain hungry, the shadow still stay

With its wizard arm lifted to smite as we flee.

We doubt thee no longer — we know thou wilt aid;

We turn to the path where thy morning rays shine;

We will seek thy first footfall, and all unafraid,

We feel thee, we love thee, we know we are thine.

We leave the old life, with the graves of our kin,

We turn from the sunset of dampness and death,

We turn where the light with its god doth begin,

And the praise of the day-king embalms every breath;

Where the sun slakes his thirst with the dew of the flowers,

Where the night flees before him far into the west,

Where the honey-dew clings to the fruit-laden hours,

Where the soul sets its table, with Joy as its guest.

So does our faith stand out against our grief;

So does our hope grow up into belief.

One God? Yes, Father, Thou! and only One.

We praise thee; yet, our praise is only done,

When we extol thee for the gift of faith.

Not every one can name thee; but each breath

May be enladen with the thought of praise

And all adore thy attributes — the ways

That they adore thee are not always thine;

Yet, do they bend to thy great thoroughfare and shine

With light from the Eternal throne;‘ tis well,

Nor otherwise than good — it can but swell

The choral of thy praise; and in the end

These thousand thoughts of Deity, in thee, not fail to blend.