Resurrection

The trumpet’s wild echo fills the skies
As though it summon’d to battle;
From out of their graves the dead arise,
Their limbs they wriggle and rattle.

Each thing that has legs prepares for the race,
The spectres white are all driven
To Jehoshaphat, the gathering-place,
Where judgment is now to be given.

There sits, as Head of the Court, the Lord,
By all his apostles surrounded;
Assessors are they,--each judgment, each word
On love and wisdom is founded.

No face is disguised in all that array
For every mask is seen falling
In the radiant light of the judgment day,
At the sound of the trumpet enthralling.

At Jehoshaphat, in the valley at last
The whole of the troop is united,
And since the defendants’ number’s so vast,
I’ve the summary only recited:

The goats to the left, and the sheep to the right,--
The parting is quickly effected;
For the pious good sheep heaven’s mansions of light,
And hell for the goats is selected.