But the people,--the people were mad as with store of new wine;
Oh, they cheered him, they capped him, they roared as he rode
down the line:
He that fled us at Worcester, the boy, the green brier-shoot, the son
Of the Stuart on whom for his sin the great judgment was done!

Swam before us the field of our shame, and our souls walked afar;
Saw the glory, the blaze of the sun bursting over Dunbar;
Saw the faces of friends, in the morn riding jocund to fight;
Saw the stern pallid faces again, as we saw them at night!

"O ye blessed, who died in the Lord! would to God that we too
Had so passed, only sad that we ceased his high justice to do,
With the words of the psalm on our lips that from Israel's once came,
How the Lord is a strong man of war; yea, the Lord is his name!

"Not for us, not for us! who have served for his kingdom seven years,
Yea, and yet other seven have we served, sweating blood, bleeding
tears,
For the kingdom of God and the saints! Rachel's beauty made bold,
Yet we bear but a Leah at last to a hearth that is cold!"

Burned the fire while I mused, while I gloomed; in the end came a call;
Settled o'er me a calm like a cloud, spake a voice still and small:
"Take thou Leah to bride, take thou Failure to bed and to board!
Thou shalt rear up new strengths at her knees; she is given
of the Lord!

"If with weight of his right hand, with power, he denieth to deal,