FROM THE GOSPEL.
SONNET I.
“Lord! if thou wilt, thy power can make me clean!”
So spake the leper, and our Lord straightway
Put forth his hand, and “be thou clean,” did say;
—Immediately he rose with alter'd mien,
For on his body might no more be seen
A vestige of the plague, which, many a day,
From Man's abodes had driven him far astray,
To dwell with dark despair and anguish keen.
Thus by thy swift, mysterious grace, O Lord,
Cleanse thou our fouler leprosies within,
That so, from exile hateful and abhorr'd,
We may at length our full deliverance win,
And (to thy presence in thy Church restored)
Bring daily gifts of love for pardon'd sin.
SONNET II.
With cheerful self-surrender, to rely
On the sure rock of thy omnipotence;—
To rest our free, undoubting confidence,
On thy deep love;—to deem thee ever nigh;—
To know that Hell's dark hosts retreat and fly
Even at thy beck;—to feel thee our defence
When most we groan beneath the whelming sense
Of our own sin—our deep iniquity;—
Is not this faith?—the faith thou dost approve;
Such faith as dwelt in that centurion's breast,
The burden of whose grief thou didst remove,
Healing his servant at his meek request?—
Such faith, O Lord, as still draws down thy love
On homes which dare not claim thee for a guest?
SONNET III.
From East and West, and North and South, shall come
Unnumber'd myriads to Christ's marriage feast;—
Souls, by his gospel, from their sins released,
And call'd, to His and their great Father, home!
From torrid Ind, from frigid Greenland some—
A motley crowd, but in whose hearts hath ceased
The empire of the demon or the beast,
And peace and love have built their temple dome.
But we—the children of the kingdom—we
From earliest childhood train'd to truth and right,
Where, at that day, if faithless, shall we be?—
Alas! excluded from our Father's sight,
For foul neglect of grace so rich and free,
Gnashing our teeth in darkness day and night.
