Explore "Retribution" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Judgment slumbered. God in mercy / Stayed his strong avenging hand; / Sent them priests and sent them prophets, / But they would not understand.
Judgment lingered; men, grown bolder, / Gloried in their shame and guilt; / And the blood of God's poor childrep / Was as water freely spilt.
Then arose a cry to heaven, / Deep and startling, sad and wild, / Sadder than the wail of Egypt, / Mourning for the first-born child.
For the sighing of the needy / God at length did bare his hand, / And the footsteps of his judgments / Echoed through the guilty land.
Oh! the terror, grief and anguish; / Oh! the bitter, fearful strife, / When the judgments of Jehovah / Pressed upon the nation's life.
And the land did reel and tremble / 'Neath the terror of his frown, / For its guilt lay heavy on it, / Pressing like an iron crown.
As a warning to the nations, / Bathed in blood and swathed in fire, / Lay the once oppressing nation, / Smitten by God's fearful ire.