Classic Poem

While the sons of earth, retiring,
From the sacred temple roam;
Lord, thy light and love desiring,
To thine altar fain we come.
Children of a Heavenly Father,
Friends and brethren would we be;
While we round thy table gather,
May our hearts be one in thee.

Jesus spreads his banner o'er us,
Cheers our famish'd souls with food;
He the banquet spreads before us
Of his mystic flesh and blood.
Precious banquet! bread of heaven!
Wine of gladness flowing free!
May we taste it, kindly given,
In remembrance, Lord, of thee.

In thy holy Incarnation,
When the angels sung thy birth,
In thy fasting and temptation,
In thy labors on the earth;
In thy trial and rejection,
In thy sufferings on the tree, —
In thy glorious resurrection,
May we, Lord, remember thee!

All thy love and mercy feeling,
All our weakness would we feel;
Humbly at thine altar kneeling,
For thy pardon would we kneel.
All our passions sacrificing,
As thy sacrifice we see,
May we, from thine altar rising,
Consecrate our lives to thee.

By thy Holy Spirit leading,
Gently draw us on the road;
By thy boundless merit pleading, —
Reconcile us to our God.
Toss'd on life's eventful ocean,
Changing though our life may be, —
When its billows cease their motion,
May we find our rest in thee!

When the heavens shall be shaken,
As thou comest from on high;
When the dead from death awaken,
To attend thee in the sky;
When the mighty seals are broken,
And the mountains, trembling, flee;
When the final doom is spoken,
May we refuge find in thee!