The Sanctuary :: :: University of Virginia Library

Oh! to have seen that trancéd eye
Which mirror'd an almighty Form,
Descended from His Throne, on high,
To welcome with embracing arm
A martyr'd Saint from earth, whose soul was plum'd to soar,
Bright from its bleeding clay, with garland dipt in gore.

Oh! to have heard that dying breath
Float heavenward from his Christ-like heart,
Who, ere he fainted into death,—
“Receive my spirit! where Thou art,”
Cried to his risen Lord: and then, a pardon sued
For those incarnate fiends, with his own blood bedew'd!

Painter, and Poet, take your stand
And, ere the angel-gleams decay,
Which o'er those features, pale and bland,
Yet linger like a twilight-ray,—
Eternalise the scene of that departing Soul,
And, far as genius can, reflect the wond'rous whole.

Fainter and fainter ebbs and dies
The life-pulse in yon fearless man,
While mission'd Angels from the skies
Are learning all such Watchers can
From Christ's first martyr, now, in kneeling grandeur there,
Lifting to realms of Light, his pleading eyes of prayer.

Wonder, and pray, but do not weep!
Calm as the brow of Jesu, seem
Yon features, ere they fall asleep,
As though he saw some beauteous dream;
And now, his last breath melts like music into heaven,
With one deep sigh enton'd,—“be their dread sins forgiv'n.”

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Thus died he into glorious fame
First of that “noble army,” Lord,
Baptized in blood, for Thy dear Name,
And martyr'd both by deed and word,—
Leaving the Church on earth a heritage of truth
Whose inspirations breathe of Apostolic youth.

Such deathless Blood is eloquent,
And consecrates that christian Host
Whose tortures are with glory blent,
And spake, with accents never lost,
Of “better things” by far, than bleeding Abel's can,
When crimson'd earth recoils from fratricidal man.

And, ever grant, O Lord of Saints!
Thy Proto-martyr pangs may be,
When nerveless mind, or courage faints,
Like clarions from eternity,
Haranguing heart and will with superhuman power,
That Heaven again may dawn on Faith's departing hour.

But, what are all the petty woes
Our depthless lives experience now
Amid the bowers of bland repose,
Where man forgets his primal vow;
Or, mid the grov'lling calm of never-glorious bliss
Sinks into sensual death, to gain a world like this?

Yet thy confessing martyrs, Lord,
Each pang and penalty foresaw,
As read they, in Thine awful Word,
To suffer, was a mystic law,
Morn, noon, and night, to them with persecution fraught,
That shaded life with death, and half its anguish wrought.

So lived, so died, those hero-souls
Whose death-pangs made the Church sublime;
And they, whose hearts such worth controls
Battle, like them, with Earth and Time,
And learn from Stephen's lips, what dying prayers can be,
When wafted up to heaven on words of charity.

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The Martyr for his murd'rers pray'd,—
And well that prayer an answer found,
When he, beside whose feet were laid
The robes a bloody hand unbound,
By miracle transform'd, in echo to that prayer,
Cried, glory to the Cross! till none but Fiends despair.

Acts vii. 55.

Acts vi. 15.

1 Tim. i. 15.