Daily Service

One day telleth another.--Psalter.

WHEN the gorgeous day begins
  In the world's remotest East,
And the sun his pathway wins,
  Bringing back some glorious feast;
There, forestalling fears and sins,
  Kneels the faithful English priest:
There the altar glitters fair,
Spread for Eucharistic prayer.

II.

And as each meridian line,
  Gains the travelled sun, that day,
Still begin those rites divine,
  Still new priests begin to pray;
Still are blest the bread and wine,
  Still one prayer salutes his ray:
Continent and ocean round
Rolls the tided wave of sound!

III.

Then at last the prairied West
  Sees the festal light appear,
And Nashotah's clerks, from rest,
  Early rise, their songs to rear;
Gird they then the snow vest,
  Raise they then the anthem clear;
Anthems in the East that rose,
Girded earth--and there mustclose.

IV.

But when, there the holy light
  Fades adown their west afar,
And begins the vesper rite,
  Faithful as the vesper star,
Then--just then--has passed the night,
  Where our eastern altars are;
And another daylight fair
Wakes a new earth-girding prayer.

V.

Brethren of the West--my soul
  Oft, to you, will westward wing,
When some hymn ascendeth whole
  At the hour of offering,
Thinking how 'twill onward roll
  Till your voice the same shall sing;
Uttered o'er and o'er agen,
Till ye give the last Amen.

VI.

That same hymn, ere I have sung,
  Hath been sung in England's fanes,
And perhance, in barbarous tongue,
  'Mid the Orient hills and plains;
And--to die the woods among,
  Swells from aisles and tinted panes,
To the forest's solemn cells,
Where the roving red-man dwells.

VII.

Moves my spirit at the thought
  That our service, Anglican,
From the faithful Isle, hath caught
  Thus, the many hearts of man;
For this sign our GOD hath wrought,
  'Gainst the heartless Roman's ban;
Seal of life and fire divine,
Mother, in those words of Thine!

VIII.

One--in water sanctified,
  Though the claim be long forgot;
One--in blood from JESU'S side,
  Though proud Trent confess it not;
One--in Spirit, far and wide,
  With each ancient part and lot;
Mother, let me ever be
One with CHRIST and one with Thee!

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