Hear, Father, hear thy faint afflicted flock <br />Cry to thee, from the desert and the rock; <br />While those, who seek to slay thy children, hold <br />Blasphemous worship under roofs of gold; <br />And the broad goodly lands, with pleasant airs <br />That nurse the grape and wave the grain, are theirs. <br /> <br />Yet better were this mountain wilderness, <br />And this wild life of danger and distress-- <br />Watchings by night and perilous flight by day, <br />And meetings in the depths of earth to pray, <br />Better, far better, than to kneel with them, <br />And pay the impious rite thy laws condemn. <br /> <br />Thou, Lord, dost hold the thunder; the firm land <br />Tosses in billows when it feels thy hand; <br />Thou dashest nation against nation, then <br />Stillest the angry world to peace again. <br />Oh, touch their stony hearts who hunt thy sons-- <br />The murderers of our wives and little ones. <br /> <br />Yet, mighty God, yet shall thy frown look forth <br />Unveiled, and terribly shall shake the earth. <br />Then the foul power of priestly sin and all <br />Its long-upheld idolatries shall fall. <br />Thou shalt raise up the trampled and oppressed, <br />And thy delivered saints shall dwell in rest.<br /><br />William Cullen Bryant<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hymn-of-the-waldenses/
