NO PEACE FOR THE WICKED.
“There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”
Isa. lvii. 21.
How like a spirit shrieks the startled Wind,
As though the air to agony were torn,
When conscience hears it with a haunted mind,
Waking at midnight, fearful and forlorn!
No peace apart from purity abides,
Deep in the heart some dark unrest will be;
Though calmest azure gild the ocean-tides,
Stern are the currents which no eye can see.
What, if the world, that sees by sense alone,
Seldom below the surface of our smiles
Surveys the secrets which to God are shown,
Believes mock gladness which the truth beguiles;
Resounding bursts of Bacchanalian joy
Oft though they ring from out the Belial mind,—
Be sure there lurks some unbetray'd alloy
Of sad rebuke, yon gilded face behind!
The peace of sinners is the trance of death,
The putrid stillness of a stagnant tomb;
Or like the pause before some parting breath
Which shakes and shudders o'er eternal doom.
But oft this lulling opiate of the heart,
By passion drunk while principle expires,
Fails in some hour to do its deadly part,
When Vengeance lights her agonising fires.
And thus the wicked have no vital peace,
Nothing which reason, truth, or knowledge makes;
The “Blood of Sprinkling” hath not brought release,
Nor calm'd the tempest which dark conscience shakes.
In vain may riches, rank, and power, and pride,
Fawn round the creedless heart and lawless will,
There is no heaven but in bad self denied,
And less than Godhead can no bosom fill.
Man's peace is grounded on majestic truth,
Enlightened conscience, hope, and faith-breathed prayer,
And they who seek it in hoar'd age, or youth,
Yearn for God's Holy One to guide them there.
Cold gnaws the worm which on pale conscience feeds,—
A darksome pang of dreariness within;
And oft in silence sad remembrance bleeds
O'er bosom'd stores of unrepented sin.
The grave! the grave! its horrent gloom appals
The craven souls which no atonement seek,
And from hereafter comes the hell that calls
The blood of gladness from a blooming cheek.
To guilt eternity a dread appears,
And God Himself is vision'd as a foe;
And how the Throne dark retribution rears,
Shades a bright present with prophetic woe!
Martyr in soul! with all thy painted smiles,
Hie thee at once to free salvation's ark,
And shun the snare of those satanic wiles
Which dazzle myriads into regions dark.
Lo, where The Church with mild maternal tone
Thy soul invites to share mysterious peace,
Pure as Emmanuel once proclaim'd His own,—
Born of The Blood which purchased man's release.
Such is the rest, divinely rich and deep,
Beyond tempestuous waves of woe to break;
Soft as the trances of that blissful sleep
Which lull'd the Saviour on the storm-rent lake.
Let but the Spirit of the Lord descend
And o'er our bosom brood with dovelike sway,
Then shall Jehovah be our guardian friend,
Point to glad Zion, and protect the way.
So will that hollow rest poor worldlings love,
No longer o'er the cheated bosom reign;
But Peace, descending from her Prince above,
Becalm our conscience like His breath again.
