THE MISTY FLATS

[LYDIA WESTERN]

THE MISTY FLATS
Wilt thou stumble, O blinded man?
For shadowed mists about thy feet,
That wrap around thy head and sweep,
The darkness of thy mistful land.

The enemy robs thee of thy whelps,
Wrapped in tranquil ashen o'er thy sleep,
And never mourns thy sunless head nor sees,
Such vulpine robbers by thee knelt.

Nor heeds alarm from higher ground,
When from some clearer hill is seen,
The outline of an enemy,
That mocked thy denial and plundering,found.

How terrifying more thy misty paths!
When stumbling at some darkened tree,
Wist not it was thine enemy,
But crushed some frightening sense of harm.

And thou, O Christian, blissful ignorance,
Stumbles at each sinful fall,
Denies was stricken there at all,
But keeps thy spurious innocence.

Sin that once was viewed as such,
Now nestles in a cloke of grey,
And strikes thy blind, denying face,
That full denies its bruising touch.

Sins bitter cup that once abhorred,
And deadly foe that once was feared,
Denied through misty conscience years,
But harms thy beauty as before.

Now all is pure? I thought it sinful!
This blindness, light? I thought it dark!
We float upon a helmless bark,
Some frightening trance of peaceful.

Behold the enemy! All around,
But seems to thee as darkened trees,
Behold a mire but placid seas,
And stumbling, as thy level ground.

Men are mad! I hold it true,
The lost and saved alike.
Content to wander in their night,
And veil the Holy that once they knew.

Wilt thou dare, O blinded man,
To lift thy cloke of sin?
And view thy Holy God within,
Whom thou hast covered with thy hand?

A gentle Dove, within thee dwells,
And grieves such blindness to His hurt!
Such disregarding of the cursed!
That threatened thee with hell.

No more forgive thy blinded state,
That parades a shallow evenness,
And steals thy clear and holiness.
This peaceful trance of pervading grey.

I pray Thy Spirit, O God, to blow!
And breath away all blinding mist,
That hides the truer face of sin,
And unifies our Christian low.

 

For thou art pure and thou art holy.
We know not Thee for we are blind,
But stumble at each law Divine,
And disregard as common folly.

Thy purest estate, thy wretchedness,
Thy finest coverings are thy nakedness.
And pious workings are thy pride,
But know ye not that thou art blind?

Thy happiest estate is still thy misery!
Thy richest place is still thy poverty!
Thy misty flats, a devils mind.
O know ye not that thou art blind?

Heaven o'er gazes, wisely and vast.
And what of our contentment?
Our happy states of condescension,
To lower views, unholy paths.

The Spirit grieveth in our breasts.
So tragic are His Holy thoughts!
That we have counted Him for nought,
And shamed His holiness for less!

 

A darker view of Holy God,
More as to a man than He.
And foolish, we assume to be,
Accepted in our misty sod.

For lower views of purest God,
Bring lower views of what He grieves,
'Till wandering there in misty seas,
Our forms of He and sin forgot.

Blow, O Spirit of God upon our dim!
And breath away satanic mist,
That settles on our souls and kissed,
Like serpent venom across the wind.

So make our air as Thy pure air,
And sereph's blush of Thee our own,
Until one day thou take us home,
And blindless view Thee perfect there.

L.J.W