Sonnets and Other Poems Chiefly Religious :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Kingdom of God is within us. God knoweth, it is not without;
The world without is a world of conflict, and sorrow, and sin,
Which darken its brightest joys with a cloud of misgiving and doubt;
But thanks be to Thee, our God, who hast set Thy Kingdom within;

For there Thy children in patience and hope shall ever be found,
Faithful even to death, a crown of life to gain;
Forming a circle of light in the midst of the gloom around,
A sphere of peace and joy in the midst of the strife and pain.

But is it so, O God? is Thy Kingdom indeed within?
Is Thy Kingdom indeed among us, on earth? for since the hour
When the Saviour returned to heaven, it seems that the care and the sin
And the sorrow of earth combine, Thy Kingdom to overpower.

And often our courage sinks, and our prayers seem unavailing,
And our faith and hope burn low like a lamp with oil unfed;
And the hands of those who fight the fight of faith are failing,
And many on sleep are fallen—are they asleep or dead?

Folly! thus to mistrust the Saviour who, dying, won us;
Slowness of heart! to doubt all that the prophets have said.
The glory of Christ shall shine from heaven and rest upon us;
Awaken, thou who sleepest, and arise, thou who art dead!

And what if the night be dark? and what if our sight be dim?
If we be weary, shall time pause in its onward flow?
Christ will remember the world though the world forgetteth Him;
And while the sower sleepeth, the corn-blades spring and grow.

Like a sightless child that sits and plays on his father's knee,
Like a weary child that leans and sleeps on his mother's breast,

We yield and trust ourselves to a God that we cannot see,
And wait, if not in joy, yet in thankfulness and rest;

In the quiet confidence that can trust our God for all;
Though the fig-tree bear no fruit, nor grapes grow ripe on the vine,
Though the flock be cut off from the fold, and no herd be found in the stall,
And the barley fail, and the wheat.—But guard the oil and the wine!

Guard the wine of Christ, which is His life, outpoured
For the saving of the world, for the life and health of men;
Guard the oil of the Spirit, which Christ has left to us, stored
To keep our lamps alight till the Bridegroom come again.

Yea, in the Lord our God we will evermore rejoice;
Knowing the Kingdom within shall be at last revealed,
When the Lord shall return in the clouds of heaven with the trumpet's voice,
And shine as a Sun on those who no longer need a Shield.

Then every foe shall be crushed like a vessel made of clay,
Every idol shall bow, and into fragments fall;
Pain and sorrow and sighing shall flee for ever away,
And death shall be destroyed, and God shall be all in all.

See Rev. vi. 6.