Sonnets and Other Poems Chiefly Religious :: :: University of Virginia Library

Sonnets and Other Poems Chiefly Religious

by Joseph John Murphy

Murphy, Joseph John (1827-1894)

SONNETS.

POEMS IN THE STANZA OF “IN MEMORIAM.”

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

CLASSICAL AND BIBLICAL STUDIES.

HYMNS.

THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND THE GLORY.

DE PROFUNDIS.

THE POTTER AND THE CLAY.

FORGIVENESS.

CONFIDENCE.

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

THANKSGIVING.

HOLY COMMUNION.

TRANSLATIONS AND PARAPHRASES.

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THANKSGIVING.

[_]

Suggested by Miss Havergal's poem on the same subject.

Thanks be to Thee, O Christ! who left
Thy heavenly throne,
And didst the crimson wine-press tread
Of wrath, alone;
And dare the bitterest pangs of death
To make us all Thine own.

Thanks for the martyrs that have trod
Thy path since then;
Proving the Spirit of their Lord
Abides with men;
Suffering with Thee, in hope to reign
With Thee in life again.

Thanks for the fruitless tears that fall
For others' woe;
The hard and tearless grief for sins
Of long ago;
The hopeless faith that cries to God,
“Why hast Thou made me so?’

123

Thanks when a groundless fear or hope
Away is cast;
When, gazing toward its prize, the soul
Forgets the past;
Thanks for the deep unrest of heart
That rests in Thee at last.

Thanks when the veil is torn that hid
A truth from view;
Thanks when we find the letter false,
The spirit true;
Thanks for eternal hope revealed,
Though seen at first by few.

Thanks for the bitter joy that finds
Its idols clay;
Thanks for the quenchless fires that cleanse
The chaff away;
For morning stars of time, that fade
In Heaven's eternal day.