Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold By "F. Harald Williams"[i.e. F. W. O. Ward]. First Edition |
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THE GREAT SILENCE (FRAGMENT). |
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THE GREAT SILENCE (FRAGMENT).
“There was Silence in Heaven.” —
Rev. viii. I.
Rev. viii. I.
The great white Throne was planted, and the God
Whose robe is thunder and who bears the rod
Of judgment with the books of life and ban,
Who is our Brother and our Fellow man,
Sat thereupon; and men were gathered round,
Nations on nations, worlds beyond a bound,
Innumerable kingdoms and the climes
Of peoples from all places and all times
Since earth began, and to the utmost end
To which creations from their cradles tend
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Was fixed, and on it set the Judge alone
In dreadful might and majesty, though not
From wrath and ruin that had been a blot
Or violence and fear, but in the awe
Of unimagined love that was His law.
And yet the terror of the Love so pure
Smote like a fire which no one could endure
With its great wealth of holiness. But He,
Who looked throughout all time that was to be
And had been, spoke no single word of good
Or evil; while in hush beneath Him stood
The generations out of every stage
Of earth and open as a printed page;
As, in the silence like a brooding dove,
He weighed them in the balances of Love.
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