Miracle

The hill was one great stone, and squatting boulders

Loomed black against the black and silver sky

Moriah draped around its giant shoulders;

And Abraham was like a clinging fly

To angels looking down upon the mass

With dazzling wings that drooped. He raised the steel-

A seraph could not stifle an "Alas!"-

He was arrested by a thunder-peal.

And from a briar, that was not before,

A lamb shone out, to die in Isaac's stead;

The birches strung the dark with silver; hoar

Sweet blossoms rained on Abraham's white head;

And far into the black and silver night

The oak-trees plunged their sudden-rustling might.