Day of Doom, at thy glooming
    May Earth be but meet for thee! 
  Day, whose hour of louring
    Not angels in light foresee! 
  To Christ alone and the Father
    ’Tis known when thy hosts of might
  Swift as giants shall gather,
    Yet stealthy as thieves at night.

  Then what woe to the froward,
    What joy to the just and kind! 
  When the Seraph band comes streaming
    Christ’s gleaming banner behind;
  Heavenly blue shall its hue be
    To a myriad marvelling eyes;
  Save where its heart encrimsons
    The cross of the sacrifice!

  Rocks in that day’s black fury
    Like leaves shall be whirled in the blast;
  Hoary-headed Eryri
    Prone to the plough-lands cast! 
  Then shall be roaring and warring
    And ferment of sea and firth,
  Ocean, in turmoil upboiling,
    Confounding each bound of earth. 
  The flow of the Deluge of Noah
    Were naught by that fell Flood’s girth!

  Then Heaven’s pure self shall offer
    Her multitudinous eyes,
  Cruel blinding to suffer,
    As her sun faints out of the skies;
  And the bright-faced Moon shall languish
    And perish in such fierce pain
  As darkened and shook with anguish
    All Life, when the Lamb was slain.

A GOOD WIFE

(After the Vicar Pritchard, 1569-1644)

  Wise yokel foolish King excelleth;
  Good name than spikenard sweeter smelleth! 
  What’s gold to prudence?  Strength to grace? 
  Man’s more than goods; God first in place.

  What though her dowry be but meagre,
  Far better wise, God-fearing Igir,
  Than yonder vain and brainless doll,
  Helpless her fortune to control.

  A wife that’s true and kind and sunny
  Is better than a mint of money;
  Better than houses, land and gold
  Or pearls and gems to have and hold.

  A ship is she with jewels freighted,
  Her price beyond all rubies rated,
  A hundred-virtued amulet
  To such as her in marriage get.

  Gold pillar to a silver socket;
  The weakling’s tower of strength, firm-locked,
  The very golden crown of life;
  Grace upon grace—­a virtuous wife.

“Marchog Jesu!”

(Hymn sung at the Investiture of the Prince of Wales, the Welsh words by
Pantycelyn, the famous eighteenth-century hymn-writer)

  Lord, ride on in triumph glorious,
    Gird Thy sword upon Thy Thigh! 
  Earth shall own Thy Might Victorious,
    Death and Hell confounded lie. 
  Yea! before Thine Eye all-seeing,
    All Thy foes shall fly aghast;
  Nature’s self, through all her being,
    Tremble at Thy Trampling Past.

  Pierce, for Thou alone art able,
    Pierce our dungeon with Thy day;
  Shatter all the gates of Babel,
    Rend her iron bars away! 
  Till, as billows thunder shoreward,
    All the Ransomed Ones ascend,
  Into freedom surging forward
    Without number, without end.