'Twas over — I gazed on the statue —
"Our Father", "Hail Mary" still came;
And to-night faith and love cannot help it,
I must still pray the same — still the same.
____ Written at Loyola College, Baltimore, on the Night of December 8, 1880.
Fifty Years at the Altar
"To Rev. Father E. Sourin, S.J., from A. J. Ryan; first, in memory of some happy hours passed in his company at Loyola College, Baltimore; next, in appreciation of a character of strange beautifulness, known of God, but hidden from men; and last, but by no means least, to test and tempt his humility in the (to him) proud hour of the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination."
To-day — fifty years at the altar —
Thou art, as of old, at thy post!
Tell us, O chasubled soldier!
Art weary of watching the Host?
Fifty years — Christ's sacred sentry,
To-day thy feet faithful are found
When the cross on the altar is blessing
Thy heart in its sentinel-round.
The beautiful story of Thabor
Fifty years agone thrilled thy young heart,
When wearing white vestments of glory,
And up the "high mountain apart".
In the fresh, glowing grace of thy priesthood,
Thou didst climb to the summit alone,
While the Feast of Christ's Transfiguration
Was a sweet outward sign of thy own.
Old priest! on the slope of the summit
Did float down and fall on thine ear
The strong words of weak-hearted Peter.
"O Lord, it is good to be here!"
Thy heart was stronger than Peter's,
And sweeter the tone of thy prayer;
'Twas Calvary thy young feet were climbing,
And old — thou art still standing there.
For you, as for him, on bright Thabor,
Forever to stay were not hard;
But when Calvary girdles the altar,
And garments the Eucharist's guard
With sacrifice and with its shadows —
To keep there forever a feast
Is the glory and grace of the human —
The altar, the cross, and the priest.
The crucifix's wardens and watchers,
Like Him, must be heart sacrificed —
The Christ on the crucifix lifeless
For guard needs a brave human Christ.
To guard Him three hours — what a glory!
With sacrifice splendors aflame!
Three hours — and He died on His Calvary —
How long hast thou lived for His name?
"Half a century," cries out thy crucifix,
Binding together thy beads;
His look, like thy life, lingers in it,
A light for men's souls in their needs.
Old priest! is thy life not a rosary?
Five decades and more have been said,
In thy heart the warm splendors of Thabor
Beneath the white snows of thy head!