“Tears washed the trouble from her face; She changed into a child; ’Mid weeds and wrecks she stood,--a place Of ruin,--but she smiled! “Oh, had I lived in that great day, How had its glory new Filled earth and heaven, and caught away My ravished spirit too! “No thoughts that to the world belong Had stood against the wave Of love which set so deep and strong From Christ’s then open grave. “No cloister-floor of humid stone Had been too cold for me; For me no Eastern desert lone Had been too far to flee. “No lonely life had passed too slow, When I could hourly scan Upon his cross, with head sunk low, That nailed, thorn-crownèd Man; “Could see the Mother with the Child Whose tender winning arts Have to his little arms beguiled So many wounded hearts! “And centuries came, and ran their course; And, unspent all that time, Still, still went forth that Child’s dear force, And still was at its prime. “Ay, ages long endured his span Of life,--’tis true received,-- That gracious Child, that thorn-crowned Man! --He lived while we believed. “While we believed, on earth he went, And open stood his grave; Men called from chamber, church, and tent, And Christ was by to save. “Now he is dead! Far hence he lies In the lorn Syrian town; And on his grave, with shining eyes, The Syrian stars look down. “In vain men still, with hoping new, Regard his death-place dumb, And say the stone is not yet to, And wait for words to come. “Ah! from that silent sacred land Of sun, and arid stone, And crumbling wall, and sultry sand, Comes now one word alone! “From David’s lips that word did roll; ’Tis true and living yet,-- _No man can save his brother’s soul,_ _Nor pay his brother’s debt._ “Alone, self-poised, henceforward man Must labor; must resign His all too human creeds, and scan Simply the way divine; “But slow that tide of common thought, Which bathed our life, retired; Slow, slow the old world wore to naught, And pulse by pulse expired. “Its frame yet stood without a breach, When blood and warmth were fled; And still it spake its wonted speech, But every word was dead. “And oh! we cried, that on this corse Might fall a freshening storm! Rive its dry bones, and with new force A new-sprung world inform! “--Down came the storm! O’er France it passed In sheets of scathing fire. All Europe felt that fiery blast, And shook as it rushed by her. “Down came the storm! In ruins fell The worn-out world we knew. It passed, that elemental swell: Again appeared the blue; “The sun shone in the new-washed sky. --And what from heaven saw he? Blocks of the past, like icebergs high, Float on a rolling sea!