When Saints of Old

When Saints of Old
by Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton

When saints of old sad vigil kept 

Beside the brooks of Babylon,

And swathed in sackcloth, silent wept

Because the light of Heaven was gone,

Some prophet old, in desert dress.

Would raise his rugged voice and cry:

''Why sit ye here in such distress if

Ye ask deliverance, it is nigh,

Ye crave a monarch who shall show

Compassion for the suffering poor.

That sceptred king ye soon shall know.

His chariot wheels are at the door.

One starlit night a little child.

The King so long expected, came.

To still the sea of passion wild.

The sins that darken life to shame,

Deep in the conscience of the race

To light red judgment fires, whose gleam

Should penetrate the darkest place

Of human thought, or deed, or dream.

His throne was laid in law and love.

The crown he wore was righteousness.

Of the symbolic sacred dove

His signet had the sole impress.

Thus came he once, but every age

Beholds that sovereign come again.

The war with wrong afresh to wage.

The love to seek of sorrowing men.

And while we sit in vigil sad

Beside our brooks of Babylon,

And mourn because the world is mad.

And Truth's majestic empire done,

God's prophets, as in ages old

In Judah and in Galilee,

Proclaim that lust and love of gold

Shall not enthroned forever be,

But humbled to their rightful place

Of thralls and subject powers, shall stand

Subdued and meek before his face

Who sits at last in sole command;

That all the lies men love shall flee

Like ghosts that dread the approaching sun,

Whene'er the king in majesty

Declares the. reign of error done;

That redder judgment fires shall glow,

And yet sweet love increase in power,

Till Time's mixed trumpets cease to blow

And earth has reached its final hour.