God hath gone forth in solemn might to shake
The peoples of the earth,
Through the long shadow and the fires that make
New altar and new hearth!
And with the besom of red war He sweeps
The sin and woe away,
To purge with fountains from His ancient deeps
The dust of old decay.
O not in anger but in Love He speaks
From tempest round Him drawn,
Unveiling thus the fair white mountain peaks
Which tremble into dawn.
Not otherwise would Truth be all our own
Unless by flood and flame,
When the last word of Destiny is known--
God's fresh revealed Name.
For thence do windows burst in Heaven and light
Breaks on our darkened lands,
And sovereign Mercy may fulfil through night
The Justice it demands.
Ah, not in evil but for endless good
He bids the sluices run
And death, to mould His blessed Brotherhood
Which had not else begun.
For if the great Arch-builder comes to frame
Yet broader empires, then
He lays the stones in blood and splendid shame
With glorious lives of men.
He takes our richest and requires the whole
Nor is content with less,
He cannot rear by a divided dole
The walls of Righteousness.
And so He forms His grand foundations deep
Not on our golden toys,
But in the twilight where the mourners weep
Of broken hearts and joys.
And He will only have the best or nought,
A full and willing price,
When the tall towers eternal are upwrought
With tears and sacrifice.
Our sighs and prayers, the loveliness of loss,
The passion and the pain
And sharpest nails of every noble cross,
Were never borne in vain.
That fragrant faith the incense of His courts,
Whereon this dim world thrives
And hardly gains at length His peaceful ports,
Is wrung from bruised lives.
Lo, when grim battle rages and is shed
A dreadful crimson dew,
God is at work and of the gallant dead
He maketh man anew.
The hero courage, the endurance stout,
The self-renouncing will,
The shock of onset and the thunder shout
That triumph over ill--
All wreak His purpose though at bitter cost
And fashion forth His plan,
While not a single sob or ache is lost
Which in His Breath began.
Each act august, which bravely in despite
Of suffering dared to be,
Is one with the grand order infinite
Which sets the kingdoms free.
The pleading wound, the piteous eye that opes
Again to nought but pangs,
Are jewels and sweet pledges of those hopes
On which His empire hangs.
But if we travail in the furnace hot
And feel its blasting ire,
He learns with us the anguish of our lot
And walketh in the fire.
He wills no waste, no burden is too much
In the most bitter strife;
Beneath the direst buffet is His touch,
Who holds the pruning knife.
We are redeemed through sorrow, and the thorn
That pierces is His kiss,
As through the grave of grief we are re-born
And out of the abyss.
The blood of nations is the precious seed
Wherewith He plants our gates
And from the victory of the virile deed
Spring churches and new states.
And they that fall though but a little space
Fall only in His hand,
And with their lives they pave the fearful place
Whereon the pillars stand.
God treads no more the winepress of His wrath
As once He did alone,
He bids us share with Him the perilous path
The altar and the throne.
When from the iron clash and stormy stress
Which mark His wondrous way,
Shines forth all haloed round with holiness
The rose of perfect day.