The Ballad of Divine Compassion

The halls of heaven were full of joy, The quivering air was blue With incense, and with candles gay The mansions of eternal day Were gleaming through and through. The Saints in Glory danced and sang In robes of glittering white— Till heaven with their music rang, The Saints in Glory danced and sang, And filled themselves with light. Through groves of trees and lawns of flowers They trod the mystic maze Of many a sacred rigadoon, Danced to a fiddling angel’s tune, With endless roundelays. One only walked apart and sighed, In all that blissful horde, Shrank from the revel, and alone Poured from an aching heart his moan, And He was Christ the Lord. He leaned across the fiery gate Which stands above the stars, And from the fields where angels dwell Shuts the red cemeteries of hell With seven burning bars. He leaned above the direful deep Where tortured spirits lie, He saw their helpless agonies, He saw their wild and weeping eyes Turned up towards the sky. And all the sorrows of His heart Were grinding in His breast, He longed to comfort those poor sheep, To give them drink, and let them sleep On the green hills of rest. Nought were to Him the heavenly fields, The flocks His blood had bought, He thought alone of His lost sheep, Of those who toss, and starve, and weep, Whom He had vainly sought. And as the Saviour watched them there In all their sweat and fear, His love and longing rose so high, That from His tender, pitying eye There fell a holy Tear. The tear rolled down, until it dropped Into the blackest hell, And straight there were strange things to see Within that pit of misery Where the pure token fell. The Tear became a mighty sea, Which raged, and roared, and rolled, And filled each black and gaping gorge, And quenched each red and belching forge, And wrecked each towering hold. And all the lost and sinning souls Were borne upon its waves— By that one Tear the Saviour wept The doomed of ages all were swept Out of their living graves. And, carried on the heaving tide, The lost souls rose to heaven, Tumbling and drowning, hand in hand, They reached the coolness of that land Where all things are forgiven. Women, and men, and children too, All blasted, scorched, and red, Were washed up to the Saviour’s feet, By that one Tear of pity sweet His loving eye had shed. The Saints in Glory danced and sang, They sang and danced so high They saw not that their Lord was gone, Or that His white and fiery throne Stood empty in the sky. They saw Him not as He stooped down To lift each cowering slave, They saw Him not, so great their bliss, On each scarred forehead lay His kiss, As sign that He forgave. He could not take those guilty ones To where the guiltless throng Pealed forth their own salvation’s praise, And through the everlasting days Shouted their triumph song. He led them to the wilderness, Where stood the Holy Cross, And from the timber of that Tree He built a house of welcome, free To those lame sons of loss. The Saints in Glory feasted on The honey-dews of heaven, So all those sinners had for food Was their Lord’s body and His blood, To their great hunger given. The Saints in Glory danced and sang, Nor missed Him from their sport, And so He made His dwelling-place With the poor pensioners of grace His pardoning love had bought. And never to the halls of bliss He lifts a longing eye, The poor souls never hear Him groan, Or sigh because His great white throne Stands empty in the sky. He leads them through the wilderness, He makes their faces wet With water from a desert steam, The black past as an evil dream He helps them to forget. He is the comforter of those Whom stormy seas have tossed, He dries the eyes of those that weep, He is the shepherd of lame sheep, The Saviour of the Lost.