The Weeping Prophet

WOE, woe is me for my dear country's sin!Woe, that a prophet's torch was given to meTo hold up, hid God's shadowing light within,Before a people who refuse to seeHow guilt draws down that light in burning levin;How awful is the purity of heaven.

A boy among the hills of AnathothI saw the visionary caldron seethe,The almond-tree its ominous blossoms wreathe,In token that a righteous God was wrothWith Israel, and in judgment would condemnThe city of His love, Jerusalem.

To be his messenger of wrath I shrank:I cried, "O Lord, I am a child, so weak!Who bears a curse, none give God-speed, or thank."Then did He touch my lips, His words I speak;And, knowing that His eyes are on the truth,I cannot answer evil ways with ruth.

Therefore I sit a mourner, and mine eyesPour day and night their heavy sorrows down.My people pass me by, for they despiseHis goodness, and with scoffs His warnings drown.While o'er my head, in cloudy columns low,The birds of prey that scent their ruin go.

Was ever any sorrow like to mine?It is no selfish trouble that I weep,O daughter of my people, but I keepVigil for thee, beneath the wrath divine,The love that reddens into justice, whenGod's perfect law is made the mock of men.

For, evermore, the tables of that law,Broken by man, are back upon him hurled.O virgin daughter, thee defiled I saw,Wandering from Him, an outcast in the world,Filthy without, and vile and crushed within;A by-word through the ages for thy sin.

Alike in visions of the day and night,A spectral presence, not to be shut out,A bleeding shadow, chased by shame and doubt,Hither and thither past me takes its flightInto the unsheltering dark of east and west:—A phantom, yet in faded splendors drest.

For thou wert beautiful, Jerusalem!Celestial colors wrapped thee at thy birth;Kings pressed from far to kiss thy garment's hem,Chosen of God, a glory in the earth!Falling from such a height to such a deep,—To be the prophet of thy doom I weep!