John Bede Polding
—* Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney—
With reverent eyes and bowed, uncovered head,A son of sorrow kneels by fanes you knew;But cannot say the words that should be saidTo crowned and winged divinities like you.
The perfect speech of superhuman spheresMan has not heard since He of Nazareth,Slain for the sins of twice two thousand years,Saw Godship gleaming through the gates of Death.
And therefore he who in these latter daysHas lost a Father—falling by the shrine,Can only use the world’s ephemeral phrase,Not, Lord, the faultless language that is Thine.
But he, Thy son upon whose shoulders shoneSo long Elisha’s gleaming garments, mayBe pleased to hear a pleading human toneTo sift the spirit of the words I say.
O, Master, since the gentle Stenhouse diedAnd left the void that none can ever fill,One harp at least has sorrow thrown aside,Its strings all broken, and its notes all still.
Some lofty lord of music yet may findIts pulse of passion. I can never touchThe chords again—my life has been too blind;I’ve sinned too long and suffered far too much.
But you will listen to the voice, althoughThe harp is silent—you who glorifiedYour great, sad gift of life, because you knowHow souls are tempted and how hearts are tried.
O marvellous follower in the steps of Christ,How pure your spirit must have been to seeThat light beyond our best expression pricedThe effluence of benignant Deity.
You saw it, Father? Let me think you didBecause I, groping in the mists of Doubt,Am sometimes fearful that God’s face is hidFrom all—that none can read His riddle out!
A hope from lives like yours must everywhereBecome like faith—that blessing undefiled,The refuge of the grey philosopher—The consolation of the simple child.
Here in a land of many sects, where GodAs shaped by man in countless forms appears,Few comprehend how carefully you trodWithout a slip for two and forty years.
How wonderful the self-repression mustHave been, that made you to the lovely closeThe Christian crowned with universal trust,The foe-less Father in a land of foes.
How patiently—with how divine a strengthOf tolerance you must have watched the fraysOf fighting churches—warring through the lengthOf your bright, beautiful, unruffled days!
Because men strove you did not love them less;You felt for each—for everyone and all—With that same apostolic tendernessWhich Samuel felt when yearning over Saul.
A crowned hierophant—a high Chief-PriestOn flame with robes of light, you used to be;But yet you were as humble as the leastOf those who followed Him of Galilee.
‘Mid splendid forms of faith which flower and fillGod’s oldest Church with gleams ineffableYou stand, Our Lord’s serene disciple still,In all the blaze which on your pallium fell.
The pomp of altars, chasubles, and firesOf incense, moved you not; nor yet the domeOf haughty beauty—follower of the Sires—Who made a holiness of elder Rome.
A lord of scholarship whose knowledge ranThrough every groove of human history, youWere this and more—a Christian gentleman;A fount of learning with a heart like dew.
O Father! I who at your feet have knelt,On wings of singing fall, and fail to sing,Remembering the immense compassion feltBy you for every form of suffering.
As dies a gentle April in a skyOf faultless beauty—after many daysOf loveliness and grand tranquillity—So passed your presence from our human gaze.
But though your stately face is as the dustThat windy hills to wintering hollows give,Your memory like a deity augustIs with us still, to teach us how to live.
Ah! may it teach us—may the lives that areTake colour from the life that was; and mayThose souls be helped that in the dark so farHave strayed, and have forgotten how to pray!
Let one of these at least retain the hopeThat fine examples, like a blessed dewOf summer falling in a fruitful scope,Give birth to issues beautiful and true.
Such hope, O Master, is a light indeedTo him that knows how hard it is to saveThe spirit resting on no certain creedWho kneels to plant this blossom on your grave.