For to the rest both words and form
Seem lost in lightning and in storm,
While Saul, in wakeful trance,
Sees deep within that dazzling field
His persecuted Lord revealed
With keen yet pitying glance:
And hears the meek upbraiding call
As gently on his spirit fall,
As if the Almighty Son
Were prisoner yet in this dark earth,
Nor had proclaimed his royal birth,
Nor his great power begun.
"Ah! wherefore persecut'st thou me?"
He heard and saw, and sought to free
His strained eye from the sight:
But Heaven's high magic bound it there,
Still gazing, though untaught to bear
The insufferable light.
"Who art thou, Lord?" he falters forth:—
So shall Sin ask of heaven and earth
At the last awful day
"When did we see thee suffering nigh,
And passed thee with unheeding eye?
Great God of judgment, say!"
Ah! little dream our listless eyes
What glorious presence they despise
While, in our noon of life,
To power or fame we rudely press.—
Christ is at hand, to scorn or bless,
Christ suffers in our strife.
And though heaven's gates long since have closed,
And our dear Lord in bliss reposed,
High above mortal ken,
To every ear in every land
(Though meek ears only understand)
He speaks as he did then.
"Ah! wherefore persecute ye me?
'T is hard, ye so in love should be
With your own endless woe.
Know, though at God's right hand I live,