Mary had prayed for him, for she
Knew the dark form again
Of the wild robber's son whom once
She healed from mortal pain.
There is a grace that Jesus earned
For souls of sinful men
Who die forsaken and forlorn,
Outcast from human ken.
To man their life is forfeited,
They pay the debt they owe :-
Rejected by their earthly friends,
Humbled exceeding low.
Then Jesus, by His death of scorn,
Obtained for them this grace,
With contrite hearts, with God to make
Their holy blessed peace.
So this poor thief repented too,
And owned his sentence just:
Forsaken by all men, he turned
To place in God his trust.
And, looking on his Saviour, said,
"Though I a sinner be,
When in Thy kingdom Thou shalt come,
O Lord, remember me.”
And Jesus smiled on him, and said :
Amen, I say to thee,
This very day that thou shalt be
In Paradise with me."
O happy thief, his dying pangs
As penance light were given,
Like purgatory's fire to those
About to enter heaven.
Blessed beside the Cross to die,
Jesus and Mary near,
His soul united to his God
In sufferings and in fear.
And thus his mother's charity
Was blest by our good Lord,
For no kind thought or word or deed
But gains its sweet reward.
NEAR to my home there is a little bay,
And crystal waves there break upon the strand
In glassy columns on the golden sand,
On whose soft field the gentle waters lay
Gifts of bright shells, and pebbles smooth as they,
And wreaths of feathery seaweed; and the beams
Of the clear sun break into thousand gleams
That shiver in the wave, and dance and play
Like golden ingots. Calm the sea's wide breast,
And deep its stillness as an infant's rest
Scarce stirred by zephyr's wing.—The heart of man
Contains e'en thus two tides within its span,
A dark abyss where mighty billows roar,
And a meek silvery ocean, and a lonely shore.
THE Lord is nigh at hand-then let us pray
That He would come not on the lightning's path,
Not with the stormy whirlwind's wings of wrath,
Nor with the thunders of that awful day
When heaven and earth and sin shall flee away,
But in great mercy, as He once did come,
A little Child, to bless our darksome home,
In great humility, that so we may
Not perish at the presence of our God.
Drop down, ye balmy dews of heavenly grace,
Drop on the weary earth's bewrinkled face,
Rain down the Just upon the thirsty sod.
So shall it open, and from thence will spring
The Lily flower-our Saviour and our King.
CALM Empress of the star-bespangled night,
Watching with silver radiance pure and clear
Over our chequered world of sorrows here;
Shedding thy soothing and transparent light
O'er the low valley and the mountain's height.
Thou lookest down upon the silent tear
That flows when none but Heaven and thee are near,
And if we view thy cloudless face aright,
That, like a tender mother, watch doth keep
Over the couch whereon her infants sleep,
It tells us that we dwell on holy ground,
That viewless angel guardians flit around,
Weeping o'er guilty man, and shielding still
Our feeble bodies and our souls from ill.
|