steps--how can we be dumb!

"There was a song
Which flowed, untutored, from the lips of love,
The ransomed ones that knelt before his throne,
No earthly tongues its echo could repeat,
So much there was of love, so much of joy,
So much of tenderness and innocence;
For they were without guile, and not a word
But breathed of faith, dependency and peace.
It praised him for his sufference of earth,
That he did bear its sin, yet did not smite;
And only once, in anger, hid his face,
And oped the heavens, to wash out its filth;
Yet, with his fervent rays, drank up the flood,
And set his bow a witness that again
Never should earth be flooded, while the years
Melt into centuries, till the whole race,
With aching hearts and scalding eyes shall come
Back to his all-embracing fatherhood.

"They thanked him for his witness-watch of man,
That time and time, his face was partly hid,
"To show the hazard of our wandering steps,
That in the early, and the latter rain,
He wept for our refreshment, till his tears
Shut out his fervent glances from our eyes;
And though he mourned our strangerhood of him,
Yet would he teach us that in smiles and tears
Are we begotten, and our lives are lost
If we find not the blessings that are hid
Beneath the rainbow tints of sorrowing.

"Thus much, and more, that I will not essay;
But I was led through fields and garden walks,
And ornate grandeur, which the earth affords
Nor pattern nor approach; and though the mind
Be forced to utmost tension, it cannot
Encompass the bewilderment of sight.
Since my return, I cannot cast it off,
It lingers with me like some raptured dream,
And in my eyes and on my face is drawn
The print of its unspeakable surmount;
And I would call it dream, if I had not
A talisman, that tells me of its truth.
An angel led me to the central throne,
An angel led me back to consciousness;
But ere he passed the confines of the sun,
He handed me a clear, transparent gem,
And called me: 'Uri, thus it shall be said:
The very god commands that it be done;

"'Uri, my light, my fire upon the earth,
Shall build again my altars and restore
With his own hand, the priesth