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THE REFORMER

—————

—BY J. G. WHITTIER—

—————

All grim and soiled and brown with tan,
I saw a Strong One, in his wrath,
Smiting the godless shrines of man
Along his path.

The Church, beneath her trembling dome,
Essayed in vain her ghostly charm;
Wealth shook within his gilded home
With strange alarm.

Fraud from his secret chambers fled
Before the sunlight bursting in;
Sloth drew her pillow o’er her head
To drown the din.

“Spare,” Art implored, “yon holy pile;
That grand, old, time-worn turret spare;”
Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle,
Cried out, “Forbear!”

Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind,
Groped for his old accustomed stone,
Leaned on his staff, and wept to find
His seat o’erthrown.

Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes,
O’erhung with paly locks of gold—
“Why smite,” he asked in sad surprise,
“The fair, the old?”

Yet louder rang the Strong One’s stroke,
Yet nearer flashed his axe’s gleam.
Shuddering and sick of heart I woke,
As from a dream.

I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled—
The Waster seemed the Builder, too;
Up springing from the ruined Old
I saw the New.

‘Twas but the ruin of the bad—
The wasting of the wrong and ill;
Whate’er of good the old time had
Was living still.

Calm grew the brows of him I feared;
The frown which awed me passed away,
And left behind a smile which cheered
Like breaking day.

Grown wiser for the lesson given,
I fear no longer, for I know
That where the share is deepest driven
The best fruits grow.

The outworn rite, the old abuse,
The pious fraud transparent grown,
The good held captive in the use
Of wrong alone,—

These wait their doom, from that great law
Which makes the past time serve to-day;
And fresher life the world shall draw
From their decay.

God works in all things: all obey
His first propulsion from the night.
Wake thou and watch!—the world is gray
With morning light.

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— January 15, 1892 —