Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/355

Rh :Dusk with the wings of eagles wheeling o’er. Day of the Lord, of darkness and not light!
 * It breaks in thunder and the whirlwind’s roar!

Even so, Father! Let Thy will be done; Turn and o’erturn, end what Thou hast begun In judgment or in mercy: as for me, If but the least and frailest, let me be Evermore numbered with the truly free Who find Thy service perfect liberty! I fain would thank Thee that my mortal life
 * Has reached the hour (albeit through care and pain)

When Good and Evil, as for final strife,
 * Close dim and vast on Armageddon’s plain;

And Michael and his angels once again
 * Drive howling back the Spirits of the Night.

Oh for the faith to read the signs aright And, from the angle of Thy perfect sight,
 * See Truth’s white banner floating on before;
 * And the Good Cause, despite of venal friends,
 * And base expedients, move to noble ends;
 * See Peace with Freedom make to Time amends,

And, through its cloud of dust, the threshing-floor,
 * Flailed by the thunder, heaped with chaffless grain!

A dubious light on every upturned head; On locks like those of Absalom the fair, On the bald apex ringed with scanty hair, On blank indifference and on curious stare; On the pale Showman reading from his stage The hieroglyphics of that facial page; Half sad, half scornful, listening to the bruit Of restless cane-tap and impatient foot,