Like to the weeping Prophet shall I bow
Low in the dust my head, cry out, and howl,
And fill with lamentations loud the vault
Of the high heaven, as I contemplate
The mischief, the irreparable wrong
Done to that heaven-invented edifice,
The Habitation of the Living God,
Whose Architect was the triumphant Christ.

Here underneath the sun have princes ruled,
And raised with polished granite, or with slabs
Of purest marble, mansions marvellous,
Garnished from roof-tree to foundations strong
With ivory from Afric, and with gold
And priceless stones of lustre rare, which flame
With wildering glory, rivalling the beams
Of lordly Helios; and yet these are
But rude inventions of the creature base.

But this which bears the title of the Christ
Outrivals far in glory everything
That can be found, not only in the work
Of cunning craftsmen who employ their powers
Earth's temples to embellish, but the best
Exhibited in star or satellite
Within the realm of the eternal God.
Of stones instinct with life, the life divine,
The life of the eternal Father, of
The Son, Creator, glorious, excellent:
With such a life those precious stones are quick
And in the Holy Spirit's might they move.

And it is into this fair dwelling place,
That the proud enemy of God and man
Has made his way with intent horrible,
To scatter, desecrate, corrupt, destroy,
And with the poison of a gospel fell,
The household to inoculate, and bring
Down on this citadel the wrath of God.
And Oh, what marvellous success has crowned
The energies of that apostate Star!

Today the gold has dim become, the walls
Have lost their brightness, and their strength has gone:
Huge breaches have been made, thro' which the foe
Has led his legions, havoc horrible,
And pitiless soul-slaughter, have ensued.
Corruption, murder, pestilence and death,
Now meet the eye where once the signs of life
And health and strength and happiness and love
And peace were everywhere discernable.

The flowing tide of soul-prosperity
Has now become most lamentably low;
The steadily retreating wave has left
The spacious foreshore naked, parched and dry,
As is the desert sand; the tide of life
No longer covers from the burning sun
The sea's wide margin, which once fathoms deep
Was by the ocean of abounding grace
Completely covered, but its dead front now
Presents a weird and woeful spectacle.
Where in the vigour of the Holy Ghost
Floods from the throne of the Lifegiver flowed
In volume without limit, and alone
The crowns of all the little hills appear,
But visible above the brookless vales
With scarce a sign of spiritual dew.
Where once rejoicing saints in multitudes
Bathed in the ocean of the grace of God,
And in its crystal depths delighted swam,
Now myriads of those who naught possess
Except an empty name to live, are found
All paddling in the mud-flats of a false
Feeble and fatuous philosophy,
Or of a hell-begot theology.

The sects of Christendom are in a race
With one another for both place and power,
As citizens of this Christ-hating world;
While to the city of the living God
And to a portion in a world to come,
In vain the Gospel of the Glory calls.
Descent is wrestling for a foothold firm
In the political arena, and
The pulpits swarm with ranting democrats.
Episcopacy headlong goes to Rome,
While Rome as ever follows Satan's lead
On to Gehenna's everlasting doom.

The German infidels all poison-fanged
Found a huge welcome in this favoured land,
And feted were as messengers from heaven;
And not the thoughtless crowd, but the elite
Among the wiselings, paid them reverence,
Yielding their naked souls that they might be
Inoculated with the virus fell.

Having received, and gladly welcome given,
To those soul-murderers, God is today
In mercy great severely testing us
By means of German guns and bayonets,
And fumes that kill the body, not the soul,
For He is merciful and gracious.
And yet those carnal instruments of war
Are dreaded more by those who know not God
Than is the poison of their blasphemies.

This wide world's wasteful diabolic war