 | Benoni |  |
204
BE WITH US.
O Christ, be with us in the day of toil,—
The weary day, the unrelenting hours,
When we are choked and stunn'd in fetid rooms,
Or flay'd in scorching suns, or drench'd in showers:
The weary day, the unrelenting hours,
When we are choked and stunn'd in fetid rooms,
Or flay'd in scorching suns, or drench'd in showers:
Be with us when we leave the happy calm
Wherein creative fancy is not bound,
And thought reflective in the sober air
No discord finds, no unpropitious sound;
Wherein creative fancy is not bound,
And thought reflective in the sober air
No discord finds, no unpropitious sound;
When some bleak knowledge, courted not for love,
O'er the pale sunless spirit holdeth sway,
And every mark whereby she is herself
And not another, smoothens quite away,—
O'er the pale sunless spirit holdeth sway,
And every mark whereby she is herself
And not another, smoothens quite away,—
The while there thickens round her and above
A dusty cloud of trivial utterings,
Hiding all law, coherence, grandeur,—all
Relations and all principles of things:
A dusty cloud of trivial utterings,
Hiding all law, coherence, grandeur,—all
Relations and all principles of things:
205
Be with us in the darkness of our grief—
Darkness, wherein the starry light of tears
Alone is ours,—where only some poor sighs
Do make a lesser silence in our ears:
Darkness, wherein the starry light of tears
Alone is ours,—where only some poor sighs
Do make a lesser silence in our ears:
Be with us in the howlings of despair—
The day of famine, when the children's cries
Are thronging up to heaven, and sweet life
Ebbs mutely in the mother's fading eyes:
The day of famine, when the children's cries
Are thronging up to heaven, and sweet life
Ebbs mutely in the mother's fading eyes:
Amen! and chiefly when impetuous sin
Throbs sudden thro' all pulses of the soul,
Be near, O Lord, and nerve us then to prove
The strong fierce joy of struggling self-control.
Throbs sudden thro' all pulses of the soul,
Be near, O Lord, and nerve us then to prove
The strong fierce joy of struggling self-control.
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