After the fire, aye, the fierce, awful fire,
Raging and burning and melting its way,
Making of heart-hopes a funeral pyre,
Crackling and dancing like demons at play,
Mad with the rage of the bottomless pit,
Darting and speeding its forked tongues of hell;
Mocking the stars in the night lurid lit,
Sweeping and swirling with maddening swell;
Treasures of years in its merciless maw,
Labors of lives in its ashes and smoke;
Mocking at sentiment, laughing at law,
Smiting the heart with a death-dealing stroke.
After the fire! It is ashes and dust;
Over the ruins men wander half dazed;
Buildings of men have passed as the gust;
Hearts are aweep, and souls stand amazed.
After the fire! Is the character burned?
Do hopes of the years lie in ashes to-day?
Have we lost the lessons of life we have learned?
Are the dust and the ashes the end of the way?
After the fire! with hearts humbled low
At the feet of the Master who reigneth above
The quake and the fire, His covenant bow
Shineth bright by His throne alight with His love.
After the fire spake the quiet, small voice,
God's voice of pleading and peace to the soul,
Rejected, destruction; accepted, rejoice,
And its life power of God makes thee every whit whole.
Out of the fire! No fierce flames of earth,
Burn they so deeply or climb they the sky,
Burn they can not that of heavenly birth,
Burn they can not what is rooted on high.
Out of the fire! Shall it purge thee of sin?
The dross from the gold, the false from the true?
In all of thy life shall God enter in,
A merging with Him who our souls shall bedew
With the water of life? No fire can withstand it,
In its flood-tide from God our souls grow apace,
And, soul, it is free; did not He command it—
The flood-tide of glory, the flood-tide of grace?
Out of the fire of the earth's desolation
The city and land of our God shall arise,
And the souls shall come forth who are heirs of salvation,
The joy of His heart and the light of His eyes.
Forever shall stand that city eternal,
Forever shall live all her citizens pure;
Established of Him in glory supernal,
No fire can destroy; they forever endure.