The poetical works of James Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

When Abraham dwelt in Mamre, angels spoke,
As friend to friend, with him beneath the oak:
With flocks and herds, with wealth and servants blest,
Of almost more than heart could wish possest,
One want the old man felt,—an hopeless one!
Oh! what was all he had without a son?
Heaven's messengers brought tidings to his ear,
Which nature, dead in him, found hard to hear;
Which faith itself could scarce receive for joy,
But he believed,—and soon embraced a boy;
Nor, while the line of Adam shall extend,
Will faithful Abraham's promised issue end.

Hence, when his lifted arm the death-stroke aim'd
At him, whom God mysteriously reclaim'd,
At him, whom God miraculously gave,
An angel cried from heaven the youth to save,
And he who found a son when he believed,
That son again as from the dead received.

When Hagar, woe-begone and desolate,
Alone, beside the desert-fountain sate,
And o'er her unborn babe shed bitter tears,
The angel of the Lord allay'd her fears,
And pledged in fee to her unportion'd child
The lion's range o'er Araby the wild:
“Here have I look'd for Him whom none can see!”
She cried;—“and found, for thou, God, seest me!”
—Again, when fainting in the wilderness,
An angel-watcher pitied her distress,
To Ishmael's lips a hidden well unseal'd,
And the long wanderings of his race reveal'd,
Who still, as hunters, warriors, spoilers, roam,
Their steeds their riches, sands and sky their home.

Angels o'erthrew the cities of the plain,
With fire and brimstone in tempestuous rain,
And from the wrath which heartless sinners braved,
Lot, with the violence of mercy, saved;
Now where the region breathed with life before,
Stands a dead sea where life can breathe no more.

When Jacob, journeying with his feeble bands,
Trembled to fall into a brother's hands;
At twilight, lingering in the rear he saw
God's host around his tents their 'campment draw:
—While, with a stranger, in mysterious strife,
Wrestling till break of day for more than life;
He pray'd, he wept, he cried in his distress,
“I will not let thee go except thou bless!”
Lame with a touch, he halted on his thigh,
Yet like a prince had power with God Most High.

Nine plagues in vain had smitten Pharaoh's land
Ere the destroying angel stretch'd his hand,
Whose sword, wide flashing through Egyptian gloom,
Lighted and struck their first-born to the tomb;
Through all the realm a cry at midnight spread,
For not a house was found without one dead.

When Balaam, blinded by the lure of gold
To curse whom God would bless, his heart had sold,
A wrathful angel, with high-brandish'd blade,
Invisible to him, his progress stay'd,

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Nor, till with human voice his own dumb ass
Rebuked the prophet's madness, let him pass.

When Joshua led the tribes o'er Jordan's flood,
The captain of God's host before him stood,
He fell, and own'd, adoring on his face,
A Power whose presence sanctified the place.

When Deborah from beneath her palm-tree rose,
God into woman's hands sold Israel's foes;
They fought from heaven,—'twas heaven deliverance wrought,
Stars in their courses against Sisera fought.

They sinn'd again, and fell beneath the yoke;
To Gideon then their guardian angel spoke:
Three hundred warriors chosen at the brook,
Pitchers for arms, with lamps and trumpets, took;
They brake the vessels, raised the lights, and blew
A blast which Midian's startled hosts o'erthrew;
Foe fell on foe, and friend his friend assail'd;
—The sword of God and Gideon thus prevail'd.

When David's heart was lifted up with pride,
And more on multitudes than God relied,
Three days, an angel arm'd with pestilence
Smote down the people for the king's offence;
Yet when his humbled soul for Israel pray'd,
Heaven heard his groaning, and the plague was stay'd;
He kneel'd between the living and the dead,
Even as the sword came down o'er Zion's head;
Then went the' Almighty's voice throughout the land,
“It is enough; avenger! rest thine hand.”

Elijah, with his mantle, smote the flood,
And Jordan's hastening waves divided stood;
The fiery chariot, on the further shore,
Deathless to heaven the' ascending prophet bore:
“My father!” cried Elisha, as he flew;
“Lo! Israel's chariot and his horsemen too:”
Then with the mantle, as it dropp'd behind,
Came down a power, like mighty rushing wind,
And as he wrapt the trophy round his breast,
Elijah's spirit Elisha's soul possess'd.
—He, when the Syrian bands, as with a net
Of living links, close drawn, his home beset,
Pray'd,—and his trembling servant saw amazed,
How Dothan's mountain round the prophet blazed;
Chariots of fire and horses throng'd the air,
And more were for them than against them there.

When pale Jerusalem heard Sennacherib's boast,
How, in their march of death, his locust host
Swept field and forest, rivers turn'd aside,
Crush'd idols, and the living God defied,
—While fear within the walls sad vigils kept,
And the proud foe without securely slept,
At midnight, through the camp, as with a blast
Hot from Arabian sands, an angel pass'd;
And when the city rose at dawn of day,
An army of dead men around it lay!

Down in the raging furnace, bound they fell,
Three Hebrew youths,—when, lo! a miracle;
At large amidst the sevenfold flames they walk'd,
And, as in Eden, with an angel talk'd:
Up rose the king astonied and in haste;
“Three men,” he cried, “into the fires we cast;
Four I behold,—and in the fourth the mien
And semblance of the Son of God are seen.”

While Daniel lay beneath the lions' paws,
An angel shut the death-gates of their jaws,
Which, ere his headlong foes had reach'd the floor,
Crush'd all their bones, and revell'd in their gore.

Angels to prophets things to come reveal'd,
And things yet unfulfill'd in symbols seal'd,
When in deep visions of the night they lay,
And hail'd the dawn of that millennial day
For which the Church looks out with earnest eye,
And counts the moments as the hour draws nigh.

Thus angels oft to man's rebellious race
Were ministers of vengeance or of grace;
And, in the fulness of the time decreed,
Glad heralds of the woman's promised seed.