University of Virginia Library

When times were worst
This thought recurred; the woes we face, what are they
Compared with that wild dread which shook the world
Three hundred years gone by? Then man to man
Whispered death-pale, ‘The Barbarous hordes advance;’
And in the bridegroom's hand the hand of bride
Shivered ice-cold. ‘Where plants my horse his foot
Grass grows no more;’ thus cried King Attila:
Huge realms became as lands the locust-cloud
But late o'erswept: where temple and street had stood,
High as their horses' chests the conquerors rode
Through ashes strewn. Civility was dead.
That day the sage and peasant side by side
Watched from the city-wall the advancing woe
As when the fountain of the mighty deep
Had open burst, and tremblers on hill crests
Eyed the great Deluge with its watery wall
On moving t'ward them. Faith alone remained,
That Faith a weeping Faith. The greatest man
And best that time on earth was Saint Augustine.
He saw that Terror reach the Afric coast:
He heard the echoes of the falling cities:
At last the Vandal reached his sacred See,
He said, ‘The shepherd with his flock should die:’
Daily, though broken, to his church he crept:
Daily he taught the poor. When sickness smote him
He spread his pallet midmost in his cell
And gave command to trace upon its walls
In letters large the Penitential Psalms
Which evermore he read till ceaseless tears
Dimmed the strong eyes nigh fourscore years had left
Like eagles' eyes. At last he gave command
‘Henceforward leave me, friends, with God alone:’
In holy sorrow thus Augustine died.
Ah me! man's sorrows are his chief illusions!
One half of those Tribes Barbaric now are Christ's,
With them our English Kingdoms Seven.