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 This, that to you is larger audience given Where prayer and praise with sighing pinions shod Piercing the starry ante-rooms of Heaven Sway the designs of God:

And now yourself, standing where late hath stood The echo of your voice, are prayer and praise— O sweet reward and unsurpassing good For that small gift of days.

Yourself, who now have heard such summoning And seen such burning clarities alight As broke the vigilant shepherds' drowsy ring On the predestined night,

Who made such haste as theirs who rose and trod To Bethlehem the dew-encumbered grass, Trustful to see the showing forth of God And the Word come to pass;

With how much more than home-spun Israelites' Poor hungry glimpse of Godhead are you blest Whom Mary shows for more than mortal nights The Jewel on her breast.

Yet, as one kneeling churl might chance to think Of the wan herd behind their wattled bars, Moving unshepherded with bells that clink And stir beneath the stars,

And, for the thought's space wishing he were back, Pray, to that Sum of Sweetness for his sheep— "Take them, O Thou that dost supply our lack, Into Thy hands to keep."