A Waking Thought

No water-floods shall drown our Lord and King!
Nor shall those ancient organs of report,
His glorious Gospels, prove the tempest's sport;
What makes me sure of what I boldly sing?
Not my poor dreams! tho', as the master wills,
They follow truth in darkness — 'tis reveal'd
That no brief torrents, from the fruitless hills,
Shall make an ooze of our historic field,
For all mankind by Christ's own prowess won —
Not my poor dreams! but all that lies between
That time and this — what is and what hath been —
The long array of all that hath been done
And suffer'd, since the Virgin bore her son —
The facts of ages, and the hopes of men!