Your wives may answer that, whose babes Their firstborn ye do take and offer up To this abhorred snake, while yet the milk Is in their innocent mouths,--your maiden babes Tender.

Your slaves may answer that,--the gangs Whose eyes ye did put out to make them work By night unwitting (yea, by multitudes They work upon the wheel in chains).

Your friends May answer that,--( their bleached bones cry out.) For ye did, wickedly, to eat their lands, Turn on their valleys, in a time of peace, The rivers, and they, choking in the night, Died unavenged.

But rather (for I leave To tell of more, the time would be so long To do it, and your time, O mighty ones, Is short),--but rather say, 'We sinners know Why the Judge standeth at the door,' and turn While yet there may be respite, and repent.
"'Or else,' saith He that formed you, 'I swear, By all the silence of the times to come, By the solemnities of death,--yea, more,.
By Mine own power and love which ye have scorned, That I will come.

I will command the clouds, And raining they shall rain; yea, I will stir With all my storms the ocean for your sake, And break for you the boundary of the deep.
"'Then shall the mighty mourn.
Should I forbear, That have been patient?
I will not forbear! For yet,' saith He, 'the weak cry out; for yet The little ones do languish; and the slave Lifts up to Me his chain.