Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/119

Rh

howl'd the storm of Winter's ire As pensive by my evening fire, Thought, long involv'd in reverie deep, Sank wearied in the arms of sleep. —Methought a rushing wing swept by, And hoary Time himself stood nigh Who scythe and hour-glass casting down, And smiling thro' a wrinkled frown, A tube display'd, whose power sublime Could bring before the eye Past ages, and remotest climes With graphic imagery. Some distant land I sought to see When the last century shone, Ere the blest Gospel's ministry On mission-wings had flown: And through that tube my glance he led Where northern seas their limits spread, Where the rough ice-berg shocks the pole, And wintry midnight chains the soul. There in a subterranean cell Her watch a Greenland mother kept, And while the lamp's faint radiance fell, Over her dying infant wept. But when beneath the snowy mound Its narrow, noteless grave was found, Wild were her shrieks of woe severe, No voice from Heaven, her pangs to cheer.