COME Thou again. The world grows old, And Faith's fire wanes and hearts grow cold; The years defraud Thee of Thy due; Come Thou, and, coming, make things new. But shouldst Thou come again indeed With a new Name, and modern creed, Hearts which are loyal to Thee still Might doubt Thy new-revealed will. And Thou, with Thy enfranchised Word, Not peace wouldst bring us, but a sword; And all Thy former gracious Past Might rise to hinder Thee at last. Yet come. The mystic beat of Time, The dead years' measured march sublime, The very truths Thy voice first taught, Grown sovereign, bring Thy power to naught. Each weary age deceasing brings Dust of dead creeds and soulless things, So that no more our souls discern Through their thick haze Thy precepts burn. Dead thoughts which ere Thy earthly years Had marred the Race with lust and tears, Arraign Thy Word, Thy Life, Thy Love, Thy Cross on earth, Thy Throne above. And some, with wandering fires grown blind No more the face of Godhead find, And are content, rejecting Thee, Aimless and rudderless to be; And some have sought in hopeless pain The styes of Pagan sense again, And in Thy place would fain install False gods with foulness for their all. And since so weak indeed we are, With Death so near and Heaven so far, With creeping mists of sin and sense Quench the white fire of innocence. Come Thou. Tho' brief to Thee appears The sum of nigh two thousand years, To lives like ours, which fleet so fast, They stretch a long abysmal Past. Come, if Thou wilt, with wider creed, To meet and satisfy our need; Or, if Thou wilt, come now as then, And fill the hungry hearts of men. Nor once, but often, come and fire Cold hearts, and doubting minds inspire; And from its depths of misery Lift a despairing world to Thee! |