W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895.
Have Mercy on Me, O Lord, Thou Son of David
Alan BrodrickW
Beneath the linen awning, Jesus sought
A moment’s quiet, while the fountain played
Her pleasant interlude to weary thought.
Of the wild crags of northern Galilee:
What awful Life is in the God-Repose,
That with the Past and Present welds Futurity!
As if the swollen torrent of deep care
Had torn down silence in its agony
To fling Grief’s secret on the trembling air!
The silent tears when every Hope had fled,
The sacred Love, which Mothers best may know,
When sickness glooms around a first-born’s bed.
The patient sadness of her darling’s eye,
As with unselfish love she feebly smiled,
All, all, came sobbing on that bitter cry—
So mid the wreck, bareheaded, ’gainst the spray,
A drowning Man might shriek across the sea.
When hope of human help had passed away.
While ghastly doubt stung her sin-laden breast,
If for the guilt done by her secretly,
God’s Curse had fallen on what she loved the best.
Yet Love was speaking in His ev’ry Look:
When earth is silent, then may Heaven be heard,
In sorrow’s gloom Faith best reads God’s own Book.
Thy knees are worn with fasting and with prayer?
Think’st thou He turns from any love away,
Because thou see’st no Angel on the air?
I will kneel on, and wait His blessed Time;
Up the steep staircase of Life’s darksome woes
I’ll climb and sing, till overhead God’s chime
And lo! if I have prayed He giveth more;
I stagger down, half-blind with victory,
Whispering the Chant from out the opening Door.