XX.

As heaves Christ's kingdom in its glorious birth
What signs prophetic gather o'er the earth!
Where Salem's towers in regal grandeur rise,
Stately and beautiful beneath the skies,
What shadows darken, as the musing eye
Essays to trace her closing history!

Lo, dimly hovering o'er the sacred courts,

Th' avenging angel waves the sword of doom
Where, in hot overthrow, Rome's fierce cohorts
Wreak all the long-pent fury of their ire,
And through the Temple's consecrated gloom,
Sweeps the red torrent of devouring fire:
Through all the horror of that fearful hour
Speaks, trumpet-tongued, the Lord's insulted power;
The hour wherein, to faith's unclouded sight
Present and future with the past unite,

While the old covenant by hand divine
Annull'd for aye, as sinks its glorious shrine,
In shadows huge forever rolls away

As twilight mists before the glance of day:

There, where the law's august design complete-
In crisis dread the mighty ages meet,

As tower on tower falls and stone on stone,
What voices speak in deepest, sternest tone,
Voices of warning with mysterious sound
Of mightiest change prophetic, echoing round,
While hosts ethereal, militant on high,
And fiery legions line the glowing sky:
Stupendous hour! what awful portents call
From wreck of Sion, mightiest in her fall,
Call us to ponder well the lore sublime
Wherein are hid the secrets of all time.
Israel's proud temple sinks no more to rise
But in her overthrow what meaning lies?
Through the rent veil and o'er the darken'd shrine
Rolls the full splendor of a light divine :—
Shades of vast empires, slumbering in the womb
Of time, rise up gigantic from the gloom,

While from their ancient bounds to ruin hurl'd

Rush the dominions of the ancient world

; Earth bides her crisis-time, but what are ye

Grim instruments of Roman tyranny?

Behold, where in the frozen North afar
Glares the red symbol of barbaric war,--

Behold where Alaric with fierce control

Plucks your brave Eagles from the Capitol;

Behold, 'neath carnage clouds which veil the sun Where sweep the wild hordes of the conquering Hun,

Proud cities fall and nature's fruitful bed

Turns to a desert 'neath his courser's tread :

Behold and tremble with unwonted fear

The Goth comes on-the hour of doom is near.

XXI.

Yet other scenes from that prophetic mount,
The muse discerning, gladly would recount :—
With steady progress through long years of peace
With gathering vigor in the times of strife.
She marks the Church of God increase,
Sustained and nourish'd by supernal life :

As a fountain, in the shade

Of some verdant hill-side, welling
Living waters through the glade

Gradual to a streamlet swelling,

Till the rill becomes a brook
Laving mead and rocky nook
Till the brook becomes a river,
Flowing deeply, silent ever,
Till the river blends with ocean

Strong and vast, in billowy motion;
Thus thy kingdom Lord! hath been
Small and feeble in its spring,
Yet, though thus despis'd of men
Conquering earth, O saviour king.

XXII.

As with the hosts of sin,

Came on the appalling strife;

How swelled the fearful battle-din

With wo and carnage rife,

Dark towering o'er her crumbling shrines

Frowns fierce idolatry, with brow of hate, And with her blood-stained fillets fast entwines The dark insignia of godless state;

From the proud chambers of the Capitol

The threatening edicts of the Cæsars roll,

While girded for the war,

on either hand

In breathless pause, two mighty powers stand.

XXIII.

Boastful and proud, with madd'ning tramp and din Blind to the aspect of the coming doom,

I see the many-legion'd host of sin

Sweep, like a lurid torrent, through the gloom; Hoary and huge, o'er all the sounding plain Tower the bulwarks of th' Apostate's reign; Stupendous arch and pillar proud and high, The trophied monuments of victory;

Vast structures fashion'd by Titanic skill

Where lust and murder glut their brutal will—
Temples august and fanes whose sculptured height

Enthrone the glories of the Pagan's might;
Wherein, through long years uncontroll'd

The dragon wrought his baleful will,

And with his hosts abhorr'd

Relentless fierce and bold,

In pride and rancor still

Stood up against the Lord