IDOLS

Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him?
Is not thine a captured heart?
Chief among ten thousand own Him;
Joyful choose the better part!

Idols, oft they won thee, charmed thee,
Lovely things of time and sense;
Gilded thus does sin disarm thee
Honeyed lest thou turn thee hence.

What has stripped the seeming beauty
From the idols of the earth?
Not a sense of right or duty,
But the sight of peerless worth.

Not the crushing of those idols
With its bitter void and smart,
But the learning of His beauty
The unveiling of His heart

Who extinguishes the taper
Till they hail the rising sun?
Who discards the garb of winter
Till the summer hath begun?

'Tis that look that melted Peter,
‘Tis the face that Stephen saw,
‘Tis the heart that wept with Mary,
Can alone from idols draw;

Draw and win, and fill completely,
Till the cup o'erflow the brim,
What have we to do with idols
Who have companied with Him?

Ora Rowan 1834-1879