The Sanctuary A Companion in Verse for the English Prayer Book. By Robert Montgomery |
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Quinquagesima Sunday.
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 | The Sanctuary |  |
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Quinquagesima Sunday.
“Alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.”
—John xvi. 32.
“They understood none of these things: this saying was hid from them.”
—Gospel for the Day.
Alone, O Lord!—yet, “not alone,”
Since oft Jehovah sends to Thee
Almighty whispers from the Glory-throne,
Attuned with His eternity;
And guardian-angels, poised on balanced wing,
Camp round Thy Soul, and anthem-worship sing.
Since oft Jehovah sends to Thee
Almighty whispers from the Glory-throne,
Attuned with His eternity;
And guardian-angels, poised on balanced wing,
Camp round Thy Soul, and anthem-worship sing.
But, moral loneliness was Thine:
And He, whose heart could echo back
In words that flow'd from Feeling's inmost shrine,
What Sorrow felt in life's worn track,—
Found this cold earth one echoless array
Of Spirits, turn'd from Him, and Truth away!
And He, whose heart could echo back
In words that flow'd from Feeling's inmost shrine,
What Sorrow felt in life's worn track,—
Found this cold earth one echoless array
Of Spirits, turn'd from Him, and Truth away!
If tears an angel-cheek might stain,
Or heaven's deep calm be moved with sighs,
Thrills that approach to Love's celestial pain
Might well have touch'd the o'erawed skies,—
When God Incarnate, ere for Man He died,
Roam'd the bleak world, deserted and denied.
Or heaven's deep calm be moved with sighs,
Thrills that approach to Love's celestial pain
Might well have touch'd the o'erawed skies,—
When God Incarnate, ere for Man He died,
Roam'd the bleak world, deserted and denied.
Weary and faint, and fasting oft,
More homeless far than beast, or bird,
On lake, or shore, or Syrian mount aloft
By awful musings inly stirr'd,—
Apart lived Christ, all unperceived by man,
And pray'd, and ponder'd o'er Redemption's plan.
More homeless far than beast, or bird,
On lake, or shore, or Syrian mount aloft
By awful musings inly stirr'd,—
Apart lived Christ, all unperceived by man,
And pray'd, and ponder'd o'er Redemption's plan.
Thus, thoughts were His divine and vast,
With meditations, high as holy,
And wordless visions, which have never pass'd
Forth from their finite melancholy,
But, shrouded lay within that mute recess
Where language could not reach their loneliness!
With meditations, high as holy,
And wordless visions, which have never pass'd
Forth from their finite melancholy,
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Where language could not reach their loneliness!
And, who can read how God-Man wept,
That, on His eye-lash hung a tear
When o'er the human spirit darkly swept
Dejection, woe, and inward fear,
Or, think the Saviour groaned, and heaved a sigh,
And scann'd the heavens with sorrow's pensive eye,—
That, on His eye-lash hung a tear
When o'er the human spirit darkly swept
Dejection, woe, and inward fear,
Or, think the Saviour groaned, and heaved a sigh,
And scann'd the heavens with sorrow's pensive eye,—
Nor feel, how much of anguish unreveal'd,
Unveil'd, unheard, unknown,
Dwelt in the purest depths of pain conceal'd,
And left Emanuel's heart alone—
Alone, beyond all loneliness to be
Save in Thy Breast, embodied Deity!
Unveil'd, unheard, unknown,
Dwelt in the purest depths of pain conceal'd,
And left Emanuel's heart alone—
Alone, beyond all loneliness to be
Save in Thy Breast, embodied Deity!
Unshared were His perceptions deep
Of Nature, Providence, and Man,
And Secrets, which their sacred darkness keep
Since time and mortal thought began,
Glided and gleam'd along that perfect Soul,
Which bow'd beneath God's infinite control.
Of Nature, Providence, and Man,
And Secrets, which their sacred darkness keep
Since time and mortal thought began,
Glided and gleam'd along that perfect Soul,
Which bow'd beneath God's infinite control.
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