After The Fire

While far along the eastern sky     I saw the flags of Havoc fly,     As if his forces would assault     The sovereign of the starry vault     And hurl Him back the burning rain     That seared the cities of the plain,     I read as on a crimson page     The words of Israel's sceptred sage: -     For riches make them wings, and they     Do as an eagle fly away.     O vision of that sleepless night,     What hue shall paint the mocking light     That burned and stained the orient skies     Where peaceful morning loves to rise,     As if the sun had lost his way     And dawned to make a second day, -     Above how red with fiery glow,     How dark to those it woke below!     On roof and wall, on dome and spire,     Flashed the false jewels of the fire;     Girt with her belt of glittering panes,     And crowned with starry-gleaming vanes,     Our northern queen in glory shone     With new-born splendors not her own,     And stood, transfigured in our eyes,     A victim decked for sacrifice!     The cloud still hovers overhead,     And still the midnight sky is red;     As the lost wanderer strays alone     To seek the place he called his own,     His devious footprints sadly tell     How changed the pathways known so well;     The scene, how new! The tale, how old     Ere yet the ashes have grown cold!     Again I read the words that came     Writ in the rubric of the flame     Howe'r we trust to mortal things,     Each hath its pair of folded wings;     Though long their terrors rest unspread     Their fatal plumes are never shed;     At last, at last they spread in flight,     And blot the day and blast then night!     Hope, only Hope, of all that clings     Around us, never spreads her wings;     Love, though he break his earthly chain,     Still whispers he will come again;     But Faith that soars to seek the sky     Shall teach our half-fledged souls to fly,     And find, beyond the smoke and flame,     The cloudless azure whence they came!     1872.