The Home Circle by Hosea G. Blake

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 23, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 40.

The Home Circle.

By Hosea G. Blake

THE HARP.

In the stormy days that marked the reign Of the iron monarch, Charlemagne, When, wheresoe'er the traveler went Over the war-worn continent, A lofty castle with stony frown From every commanding hill looked down; At that time of terror a Christian knight, Across the valley from height to height Stretched a cord of iron, a mighty wire, Anvil-hammered and tried with fire. He hoped, he said, that the gentle hand Of summer winds in the iron strand Would wake a music diviner, higher, Than the sounds of warfare that filled the land.

Over the wire the breezes swept, But the soul of music within it slept; It felt the north wind's fiercer stroke, But still the touch no answer woke, No throbbing sweetness the silence broke. Loud the people laughed, and said: "This is no harp, but a wire instead; And he who made it, how little he knows!"

But once at midnight a storm arose. As the terrible rush of the angry blast By turret and tower swept hurrying past, The harp awoke! and above the beat Of the roaring tempest, sublimely sweet, The sound of its music swelled and rose, Till the people cried in the valley below: "Surely the trumpets of angels blow; The skies above us are tempest-riven, For we hear the songs of the saved in Heaven!"

O'er harp-string or heart-string the storm must break Before its divinest notes awake; Not gentle breezes, but winds that smite; Not the zephyr's breath, but the whirlwind's might; Not joy, but chastening, strikes the tone Sweet as the notes the ransomed raise, Who lift forever their songs of praise Through the spaces around the Throne! —Hosea G. Blake.