A Folk-Song “Behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.”—LUKE xxii. 31. IN Saint Luke’s Gospel we are told How Peter in the days of old Was sifted; And now, though ages intervene, Sin is the same, while time and scene Are shifted. Satan desires us, great and small, As wheat, to sift us, and we all Are tempted; Not one, however rich or great, Is by his station or estate Exempted. No house so safely guarded is But he, by some device of his, Can enter; No heart hath armor so complete But he can pierce with arrows fleet Its centre. For all at last the cock will crow Who hear the warning voice, but go Unheeding, Till thrice and more they have denied The Man of Sorrows, crucified And bleeding. One look of that pale suffering face Will make us feel the deep disgrace Of weakness; We shall be sifted till the strength Of self-conceit be changed at length To meekness. Wounds of the soul, though healed, will ache; The reddening scars remain, and make Confession; Lost innocence returns no more; We are not what we were before Transgression. But noble souls, through dust and heat, Rise from disaster and defeat The stronger, And conscious still of the divine Within them, lie on earth supine No longer.
The Sifting of Peter
More from Poet
|
It was the schooner Hesperus That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company. Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, That ope in the month of May. The skipper... |
This is the arsenal. From floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms. Ah! what a sound will rise—how wild and dreary— When the death-angel touches those swift keys! What loud lament... |
From “The Building of the Ship” THOU, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O UNION, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate! We know what Master laid thy keel, What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, Who made each... |
“SPEAK! 1 speak! thou fearful guest! Who, with thy hollow breast Still in rude armor drest, Comest to daunt me! Wrapt not in Eastern balms, But with thy fleshless palms Stretched, as if asking alms, Why dost thou haunt me?” Then from those cavernous eyes Pale flashes seemed to rise, As when... |
|
Taddeo Gaddi built me. I am old, Five centuries old. I plant my foot of stone Upon the Arno, as Saint Michael’s own Was planted on the dragon. Fold by fold Beneath me as it struggles, I behold Its glistening scales. Twice hath it overthrown My kindred and companions. Me alone It moveth... |