The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

Wake, power divine, awake!
Arm of the Lord! arise,
And from our spirit take
The mist which round it lies;
Each blinding shade of self dispel
That veils the sin we love so well.

Stern Preacher of the wild!
Enrobed with camel-hair,
Convince cold hearts defiled,
And melt them into prayer;
Through conscience be thy thunder sent,—
“Arise! cold sleeper, and repent.”

Bold lightnings of reproof
Through each dead conscience dart,
Till we no more aloof
From heaven shall hide the heart:
E'en as of old, Judéa heard,
Be all our souls with anguish stirr'd.

Lift, brave Elijah, now
That voice of dauntless truth!
Till shame upon each brow
Of weeping age and youth
Shall print the scarlet blush that tells
What pang in deep repentance dwells.

Thine axe, Conviction, lay
Down to the roots of thought,
Until Remorse shall pray
O'er all vile sin hath wrought:
For that which love doth not inspire
Must perish in God's penal fire.

And let repentance prove
Its vigour by the fruit;
That cannot spring from love
Which doth not bud, and shoot,
And by a life of tears and prayers
Attest the change God's will declares.

Thy fan, O Spirit! wield,
And purge the chaff-strewn floor,
Until the garner yield
Of wheat a precious store;
Baptised with fire, so let us be,
And bid our hearts resemble Thee.

“Repent ye!”—'tis the cry
By conscience echoed back;
From earth and vaulted sky
Along our sin-worn track,
We hear its awful cadence roll
Like thunder through our warnèd soul.

Nor let religious pride
On fruitless names repose;
For heaven hath aye denied
A faith of forms and shows,
And, rather than rank falsehood own,
Will raise a seed from out the stone.

“Repent!”—again we hear
That cry of just alarm;
And let it shake the soul with fear,
To rouse the opiate charm
Which lulls the hypocrite to death,
And cheats him to his latest breath.

Repentance!—what is life
But matter fit for tears?
Since, all we are is rife
With worse than what appears:
If tried without, men are but sin;
Yet God discerns the heart within!

Our virtues oft are self
In bland disguise conceal'd;
Our charities to pelf
Some wretched incense yield,
And holy graces are at best
But weakness by religion dress'd.

Repent we then!—yet, where?
Not as Iscariot did;
But by the Cross in prayer
Be our deep anguish hid:
On Jesus gaze we, till the sight
Shall melt our hearts, and make them white.

Repentance stern and true
Exceeds all common woe:
Despair for crime may rue
And scalding tear-drops flow,
But Self in this alone abounds,—
Repentance rests on nobler grounds.

What is it but a change
By Godhead work'd within?
A principle whose range
Subdues the love of sin?
'Tis man renew'd, and heaven resought,
With hate for what our guilt has wrought.

And what can this create?
Not all the powers of earth;
The perfect forms of good and great
In wisdom, truth, or worth;—
Not heaven with glory, hell with pain
Could sinful man for God regain!

The faintest sin defies
A universe to crush
The strength which in it lies;
And so, 'twill madly rush
Downward to face th' infernal deep
Where blasted spirits burn and weep.

But, oh, there is a Power
This granite of the heart
To soften, in that hour
Ere conscience may depart,—
Atoning Love, through guilt forgiven,
The rescued heart can raise to heaven!

Such pure contrition springs
From Mercy's bleeding charm,
Whose soft compulsion wrings
The soul with safe alarm;
And thus, when wrought by Christ above
Repentance works by weeping love.