Lord, thou hast hastened to retrieve, to heal,
To feed, to bind, to clothe, to quench the brand,
To prop the ruin, to bless, and to anneal;
Hast sped Thy ships by sea, Thy trains by land,
Shed pity and tears:—our shattered fingers feel
Thy mediate and intelligible hand.
THE UNKNOWN GOD
One of the crowd went up,
And knelt before the Paten and the Cup,
Received the Lord, returned in peace, and prayed
Close to my side. Then in my heart I said:
"O Christ, in this man's life!—
This stranger who is Thine—in all his strife,
All his felicity, his good and ill,
In the assaulted stronghold of his will,
"I do confess Thee here,
Alive within this life; I know Thee near
Within this lonely conscience, closed away
Within this brother's solitary day.
"Christ in his unknown heart,
His intellect unknown—this love, this art,
This battle and this peace, this destiny
That I shall never know, look upon me!
"Christ in his numbered breath,
Christ in his beating heart and in his death,
Christ in his mystery! From that secret place
And from that separate dwelling, give me grace!"
A GENERAL COMMUNION
I saw the throng, so deeply separate,
Fed at one only board—
The devout people, moved, intent, elate,
And the devoted Lord.
O struck apart! not side from human side,
But soul from human soul,
As each asunder absorbed the multiplied,
The ever unparted, whole.