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LV

THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION

HIS world I deem

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But a beautiful dream

Of shadows that are not what they seem,

Where visions rise,

Giving dim surmise

Of the things that shall meet our waking eyes.

Arm of the Lord!

Creating Word!

Whose glory the silent skies record
Where stands Thy name

In scrolls of flame

On the firmament's high-shadowing frame.

I gaze o'erhead,

Where Thy hand hath spread

For the waters of Heaven that crystal bed,

And stored the dew

In its deeps of blue,

Which the fires of the sun come tempered through.

Soft they shine

Through that pure shrine,

As beneath the veil of Thy flesh divine,

Beams forth the light

That were else too bright

For the feebleness of a sinner's sight.

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Where time and space are the warp and woof,

Which the King of kings

As a curtain flings

O'er the dreadfulness of eternal things, —

A tapestried tent

To shade us meant

From the bare everlasting firmament;

Where the blaze of the skies

Comes soft to our eyes

Through a veil of mystical imageries.

But could I see

As in truth they be,

The glories of Heaven that encompass me,
I should lightly hold

The tissued fold

Of that marvellous curtain of blue and gold.

Soon the whole

Like a parched scroll
Shall before my amazèd sight uproll,

And without a screen

At one burst be seen

The Presence wherein I have ever been.

O! who shall bear

The blinding glare

Of the Majesty that shall meet us there?
What eye may gaze

On the unveiled blaze

Of the light-girdled throne of the Ancient of days?

Christ us aid!

Himself be our shade,

That in that dread day we be not dismayed.

T. Whytehead

LVI

THE THIRD DAY OF CREATION

HOU spakest, and the waters rolled

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Hot on the earth away,

They fled, by Thy strong voice controlled,
Till Thou didst bid them stay:
Then did that rushing, mighty ocean,
Like a tame creature cease its motion,
Nor dared to pass where'er Thy hand
Had fixed its bound of slender sand.

And freshly risen from out the deep
The land lay tranquil now
Like a new-christened child asleep
With the dew upon its brow:

As when in after time the earth
Rose from her second watery birth,
In pure baptismal garments drest,
And calmly waiting to be blest.

Again Thou spakest, Lord of power,
And straight the land was seen
All clad with tree, and herb, and flower,
A robe of lustrous green :

Like souls, wherein the hidden strength
Of their new birth is waked at length,

When, robed in holiness, they tell
What might did in those waters dwell.

Lord, o'er the waters of my soul

The word of peace be said;

Its thoughts and passions bid Thou roll
Each in its channelled bed;
Till that in peaceful order flowing,
They time their glad obedient going
To Thy commands, whose voice to-day
Bade the tumultuous floods obey.

For, restless as the moaning sea,
The wild and wayward will
From side to side is wearily
Changing and tossing still;

But swayed by Thee, 't is like the river
That down its green banks flows for ever,
And calm and constant tells to all

The blessedness of such sweet thrall.

Then in my heart, Spirit of might,
Awake the life within,

And bid a spring-tide, calm and bright,

Of holiness begin:

So let it lie with Heaven's grace

Full shining on its quiet face,

Like the young earth in peace profound,

Amid the assuagèd waters round.

T. Whytehead

LVII

THE SEVENTH DAY OF CREATION

ABBATH of the saints of old,

SABBATH of the saintis of d

By the great Creator blest,
Type of His eternal rest:

I with thoughts of thee would seek
To sanctify the closing week

Resting from His work, the Lord
Spake to-day the hallowing word;
And, His wondrous labors done,
Now the everlasting Son

Gave to heaven and earth the sign
Of a wonder more divine.

Resting from His work to-day,
In the tomb the Saviour lay,

His sacred form from head to feet

Swathed in the winding-sheet,

Lying in the rock alone,

Hid beneath the sealèd stone.

All the seventh day long I ween
Mournful watched the Magdalene,
Rising early, resting late,
By the sepulchre to wait,
In the holy garden glade

Where her buried Lord was laid.

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