Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/64
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52
'Go forth, my sons, through heathen realms proclaim
'Mercy to sinners in a Saviour's name:'
Thus spake the Lord; they heard, and they obey'd;
—Greenland lay wrapt in nature's heaviest shade;
Thither the ensign of the cross they bore;
The gaunt barbarians met them on the shore;
With joy and wonder hailing from afar,
Through polar storms, the light of Jacob's star.
'Mercy to sinners in a Saviour's name:'
Thus spake the Lord; they heard, and they obey'd;
—Greenland lay wrapt in nature's heaviest shade;
Thither the ensign of the cross they bore;
The gaunt barbarians met them on the shore;
With joy and wonder hailing from afar,
Through polar storms, the light of Jacob's star.
Where roll Ohio's streams, Missouri's floods,
Beneath the umbrage of eternal woods,
The Red Man roam'd, a hunter-warrior wild;
On him the everlasting Gospel smiled;
His heart was awed, confounded, pierced, subdued,
Divinely melted, moulded, and renew'd;
The bold base Savage, nature's harshest clod,
Rose from the dust the image of his God.
Beneath the umbrage of eternal woods,
The Red Man roam'd, a hunter-warrior wild;
On him the everlasting Gospel smiled;
His heart was awed, confounded, pierced, subdued,
Divinely melted, moulded, and renew'd;
The bold base Savage, nature's harshest clod,
Rose from the dust the image of his God.