Awake! Oh fellow sinner!—Wake!
The weight of death is on thy soul!
The burden infinite of sin’s uncanceled debt
Forthstretching from that dire primeval fall,
And reaching on to the abyss of twice-told living death,
That waits for ruined man!
Awake! The shroud of night is on thy soul,
Blackness of darkness! infinite—
Still uncomprehended and unfelt though now begun,
To end (not lose its end) in that immensity of woe
Unuttered and unknown,
How shall we bid thee wake and rise, that
Christ may give thee light!
Oh! life of earth whose boast is in the grave;
Time’s passing mirage, vision of a night,
How can man deem thee aught, and claim thee as his all?
For thou but lull’st thy victims with sure opiates of forgetfulness.
And bid’st them dream of life, while drifting down thy fiery stream
Into the tideless ocean of eternal death:—
Man clasps a shadow, and th’eternal substance scorns—
He thirsts, yet slakes his thirst with poison
Ere he turns to th’ eternal fount—
Source uncreate of light, and life, and love,
Which open stands wooing his need, that he
May drink therefrom and live forever.—
Water of life! the smitten Rock has bid thee flow,
And freely flow for us.
Gush forth in every heart in all thine energy divine
And seal thy resurrection-power and every sin-sick soul
That yearns for life.
Light of eternal truth shine forth—irradiate on thy page
And bid each opened eye, thy glory see,
Each wakened ear the breathings of thy quickening voice confess,
Oh, word of life, who badst the dead to rise—
Who spake the word, “Let there be light,”
And darkness fled away.
T.T.