THE POOR MAN’S DAILY BREAD
By Denis A. McCarthy
Not only there where jewelled vestments blaze,
And princely prelates bow before Thy shrine,
Where myriads line the swept and garnished ways
Through which is borne Thy Majesty Divine—
O Jesus of the ever loving heart,
Not only there Thou art!
But where the lowliest church its cross uplifts
Above the city’s sordidness and sin;
Where all unheeded human wreckage drifts
And drowns amid the foulness and the din—
There, too, anear the very gates of hell,
O Saviour, dost Thou dwell!
Oh, meet it is that round Thy altar thrones,
Thy highest priests should ministering throng
With silken robe, with gold and precious stones,
With solemn chant and loud triumphant song:
What beauty that the world could give would be
Too beautiful for Thee?
And yet to those that work with grimy hands
And sweaty brows in ditches and in drains,
Thou comest with a love that understands
Their labor ill-requitted, and their pains.
Who knows so well as Thou what they endure,
O Father of the poor?
And so, deep-hid in many a city street,
Or far where lonely workers break the soil,
Are shrines where Thou, the Merciful, dost meet,
In love’s embrace, the weary ones that toil.
For them Thy hospitable board is spread,
With Thee, Thy very Self, their Daily Bread!