Jeremiah
“O that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them!”
“Woe’s me!” the peaceful prophet cried,
“Spare me this troubled life;
To stem man’s wrath, to school his pride,
To head the sacred strife!
“O place me in some silent vale,
Where groves and flowers abound;
Nor eyes that grudge, nor tongues that rail,
Vex the truth-haunted ground!”
If his meek spirit err’d, opprest
That God denied repose,
What sin is ours, to whom Heaven’s rest
Is pledged, to heal earth’s woes?
Off Galita. December 22, 1832.