Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/124

124 Amid its darkness, with those fetter'd limbs? Mad Pagans! do ye thus requite the man Who toils for your salvation? See that form Bending in tenderest sympathy to soothe The victim's sorrow. Tardy months pass by, And find her still intrepid at the post Of danger and of disappointed hope. Stern sickness smote her, yet with tireless zeal, She bore the hoarded morsel to her love, Dar'd the rude arrogance of savage power, To plead for him, and bade his dungeon glow, With her fair brow, as erst the angel's smile Arous'd imprison'd Peter, when his hands From fetters loos'd, were lifted high in praise. —There was another scene, drawn by his hand Whose icy pencil blotteth out the grace And loveliness of man. The keenest shaft Of anguish quivers in that martyr's breast, Who is about to wash her garments white In her Redeemer's blood, and glorious rise From earthly sorrows to a clime of rest. —Dark Burman faces are around her bed, And one pale babe is there, for whom she checks The death-groan, clasping it in close embrace, Even till the heart-strings break. Behold, he comes! The wearied man of God from distant toil. His home, while yet a misty speck it seems, His straining eye detects, but marks no form Of his beloved, hasting down the vale, As wont, to meet him.