Page:Redemption, a Poem.djvu/198

 192 REDEMPTION.

Benignity sat on his brow, forecast

Of deep devising, all-providing pow'r.

For who had once, his murm'ring children fed

With manna, in the desert, from the flint

Bade streams of living water flow, had now,

With handsel skill, unwonted means devised,

To satisfy the hungry throng with bread ;

When nature's laws he quite reversed, and stood

Philosophy abash'd, to find the parts

Were greater than the whole. Andrew replied :

"There is a lad here, who of barley loaves Hath seven, and of fishes two ; but what Are they among five thousand men, women, And little ones beside, that all might have The smallest share of each, much less enough To satisfy their craving want of food, Nor yet their needful strength the least repair ? Two hundred pennyworth would not suffice ; How vain the hope to satisfy with these."

But yearning with ineffable desire, Jesus these few loaves takes, and bids the men, Upon the grassy sward sit down. Blessing, He breaks ; and breaking, gives to them the bread; So, of the fish the same, and all partake, And all are fill'd ; and of the fragments, when They all had eat, twelve basketfuls remain. So, at Sarephta, he, by prophet's word, The widow's meal, and cruse of oil, made serve The need dividual, of many days ; And so, at Kibroth, multiplied the quails, To serve quotidian his people's wants. Prophetic wonders, which his grace design'd

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