Saints

The Saints of Thy great Church, 0 Christ,
How vast their numbers be -
On holy page and ancient scroll
Their blessed names we see,
And from the painted window panes
They smile eternally.

Rope-girdled monk, and pallid maid,
And men who for Thy cross
Fought with the Saracen of old,
Counting their lives no loss -
Martyrs who rose through golden flames,
Free of the body's dross.

Yet there be Saints uncanonised,
Unrecognised, unknown -
Here on the common roads of earth,
Oft times they walk alone;
Saints whom no soul hath ever praised,
Saints whom no Church doth own.

Men who against their souls' grim foes
Wage an unyielding fight;
Men of new creeds, and men of old,
Men of dark hue, and white,
Each pressing hard towards some far gleam
Of Thy celestial light.

Dwellers in places waste and lone,
Toilers upon the seas -
Mayhap they seldom pray high heaven.
Softly - on bended knees -
Yet in the roll-call of Thy Saints,
Dear Christ - remember these.

Virna Sheard

Virna Sheard was a Canadian poet and novelist associated with the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She gained recognition for her poetry collections such as 'The Miracle, and Other Poems' and 'A Sea of Sunset'. Her work often explored themes of love, spirituality, and the natural world. Apart from poetry, she also wrote several novels that contributed significantly to Canadian literature of her time.

Virna Sheard

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The Call

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English

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All Saints.

They are flocking from the East
And the West,
They are flocking from the North
And the South,
Every moment setting forth
From realm of snake or lion,
Swamp or sand,
Ice or burning;
Greatest and least,
Palm in hand
And praise in mouth,
They are flocking up the path
To their rest,
Up the path that hath
No returning.

Up the steeps of Zion
They are mounting,
Coming, coming,
Throngs beyond man's counting;
With a sound
Like innumerable bees
Swarming, humming
Where flowering trees
Many-tinted,
Many-scented,
All alike abound
With honey, -
With a swell
Like a blast upswaying unrestrainable
From a shadowed dell
To the hill-tops sunny, -
With a thunder
Like the ocean when in strength

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XXIV - Saints

Ye, too, must fly before a chasing hand,
Angels and Saints, in every hamlet mourned!
Ah! if the old idolatry be spurned,
Let not your radiant Shapes desert the Land:
Her adoration was not your demand,
The fond heart proffered it, the servile heart;
And therefore are ye summoned to depart,
Michael, and thou, St. George, whose flaming brand
The Dragon quelled; and valiant Margaret
Whose rival sword a like Opponent slew:
And rapt Cecilia seraph-haunted Queen
Of harmony; and weeping Magdalene,
Who in the penitential desert met
Gales sweet as those that over Eden blew!

William Wordsworth

The Saints' Maying

Since green earth is awake
Let us now pastime take,
Not serving wantonness
Too well, nor niggardness,
Which monks of men would make.

But clothed like earth in green,
With jocund hearts and clean,
We will take hands and go
Singing where quietly blow
The flowers of Spring's demesne.

The cuckoo haileth loud
The open sky; no cloud
Doth fleck the earth's blue tent;
The land laughs, well content
To put off winter shroud.

Now, since 'tis Easter Day,
All Christians may have play;
The young Saints, all agaze
For Christ in Heaven's maze,
May laugh who wont to pray.

Then welcome to our round
They light on homely ground:--
Agnes, Saint Cecily,
Agatha, Dorothy,
Margaret, Hildegonde;

Next come with B...

Maurice Henry Hewlett

The Men Of Old

Well speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast!
Yet all unworthy of its trust thou art,
If, with dry eye, and cold, unloving heart,
Thou tread'st the solemn Pantheon of the Past,
By the great Future's dazzling hope made blind
To all the beauty, power, and truth behind.
Not without reverent awe shouldst thou put by
The cypress branches and the amaranth blooms,
Where, with clasped hands of prayer, upon their tombs
The effigies of old confessors lie,
God's witnesses; the voices of His will,
Heard in the slow march of the centuries still!
Such were the men at whose rebuking frown,
Dark with God's wrath, the tyrant's knee went down;
Such from the terrors of the guilty drew
The vassal's freedom and the poor man's due.
St. Anselm (may he rest forevermore
In Heaven's sw...

John Greenleaf Whittier

Nuns Of The Perpetual Adoration

Calm, sad, secure; behind high convent walls,
These watch the sacred lamp, these watch and pray:
And it is one with them when evening falls,
And one with them the cold return of day.

These heed not time; their nights and days they make
Into a long, returning rosary,
Whereon their lives are threaded for Christ's sake;
Meekness and vigilance and chastity.

A vowed patrol, in silent companies,
Life-long they keep before the living Christ.
In the dim church, their prayers and penances
Are fragrant incense to the Sacrificed.

Outside, the world is wild and passionate;
Man's weary laughter and his sick despair
Entreat at their impenetrable gate:
They heed no voices in their dream of prayer.

They saw the glory of the world displayed;
They s...

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Heaven

Not with the haloed saints would Heaven be
For such as I;
Who have not reached to their serenity
So sweet and high.

Not with the martyrs washed by holy flame
Could I find place,
For they are victors who through glory came
To see God's face.

Not with the perfect souls that enter there
Could mine abide,
For clouded eyes from eyes all cloudless fair
'Twere best to hide.

And not for me the wondrous streets of gold
Or crystal sea -
I only know the brown earth, worn and old,
Where sinners be.

Unless I found those who to me belong,
My dear and own,
I, in the vastness of that shining throng,
Would be alone.

God guide us to some sun-blessed little star,
We ask not where,
Nor whether it be near or it be far,

Virna Sheard