Chronological Overview of the Holy Land – Latter Days

At the Sea of Galilee

 I have stood on the shore of the beautiful sea,

The renowned and immortalized Galilee,

When t’was wrapp’d in repose, at eventide

Like a royal queen in her conscious pride.

No sound was astir – not a murmuring wave-

Not a motion was see, but the tremulous lave,

A gentle heave of the water’s crest-

As the infant breathes on a mother’s breast.

I thought of the present- the past: it seemed

That the silent Sea, with instruction teem’d;

For often, indeed, the heart can hear

What never, in sound has approached the ear.

Full oft has silence been richly fraught

With treasures of wisdom, and stores of thought,

With sacred, heavenly whisperings, too,

That are sweeter than roses and honey dew.

There’s a depth in the soul, that’s beyond the reach

Of all earthly sound-of all human speech,

A fiber too sacred and pure, to chime

With the cold dull music of Earth and Time.

“Tis the heart’s receptacle, the nought can supply,

But the streams that flow from the fount on high.

An instinct divine of immortal worth,

An inherited gift, through primeval birth.

Again when he shades of night, were gone,

In the clear, bright rays of the morning dawn,

I walked on the bank of this selfsame Sea,

Where once, our Redeemer was wont to be.

Where, “Lord save, or I perish,” was Peter’s prayer,

Befitting the weak and the faithless elsewhere.

And here while admiring this Scriptural Sea,

Th’bold vista of Time, brought th’ past up to me;

Embos’d with events when the Prince of Life,

Endured this world’s hatred-its envy and strife;

When, in Him, the Omnipotent was revealed,

And, by Him, the wide breach of the law, was healed.

The gates, He unbarred, and led the way,

Through the shadow of death to the courts of day:

And “led captivity captive,” when

“He ascended on high and gave gifts unto men.”

Damascus, Syria, March 1873.

Poems, 1877 by Eliza R. Snow

 https://archive.org/stream/poemsreligioushi02snow#page/n5/mode/2up