And so, deep-hid in many a city street,
Or far where lonely workers break the soil,
Are shrines where Thou, the Merciful, dost meet,
In love's embrace, the weary ones that toil.
For them Thy hospitable board is spread,
With Thee, Thy very Self, their Daily Bread!
TO ASK OUR LADY'S PATRONAGE FOR A
BOOK ON COLUMBUS: A FRAGMENT
By Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Star of the Sea, to whom, age after age,
The maiden kneels whose lover sails the sea;
Star, that the drowning death-pang can assuage,
And shape the soul's course to eternity;
Mother of God, to Egypt's realm exiled,
Mother of God, in Bethlehem's crib confined,
Thee do I ask to aid my anxious mind,
And make this book find favour with thy Child.
Of one who lived and laboured in thy ray,
I would rehearse the striving and success;
Through the dense past I ne'er shall find my way,
Unless thou helpest, hold Comfortress;
A world of doubt and darkness to evade;
An ocean all unknown to Christian kind;
Another world by nature's self arrayed,
O'er the wide waste of waves, I seek to find.
