Thy tranced yet open gaze
  Fixed on the desert haze,
As one who deep in heaven some airy pageant sees.

  In outline dim and vast
  Their fearful shadows cast
This giant forms of empires on their way
  To ruin: one by one
  They tower and they are gone,
Yet in the Prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay.

  No sun or star so bright
  In all the world of light
That they should draw to Heaven his downward eye:
  He hears th' Almighty's word,
  He sees the angel's sword,
Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie.

  Lo! from you argent field,
  To him and us revealed,
One gentle Star glides down, on earth to dwell.
  Chained as they are below
  Our eyes may see it glow,
And as it mounts again, may track its brightness well.

  To him it glared afar,
  A token of wild war,
The banner of his Lord's victorious wrath:
  But close to us it gleams,
  Its soothing lustre streams
Around our home's green walls, and on our church-way path.

  We in the tents abide
  Which he at distance eyed
Like goodly cedars by the waters spread,
  While seven red altar-fires
  Rose up in wavy spires,
Where on the mount he watched his sorceries dark and dread.

  He watched till morning's ray
  On lake and meadow lay,
And willow-shaded streams that silent sweep
  Around the bannered lines,
  Where by their several signs
The desert-wearied tribes in sight of Canaan sleep.