| |
| THE AFTER-GLOW lies purple on the hill, | |
| And o’er the listening crowd, | |
| There falls the boding of the evening chill, | |
| And mist of thickening cloud. | |
| |
| Where shall they go who all day long have stood | 5 |
| Hearing the news of joy? | |
| Where in this town, that village, gather food | |
| For woman, man, and boy? | |
| |
| Weary, and sad that journey through the waste, | |
| Half-fainting by the way, | 10 |
| Through darkness pressing with bewildering haste, | |
| Down sinking ere the day. | |
| |
| And some are lame, and palsied, deaf or blind, | |
| Still waiting for His hand; | |
| Or, healed that very day, can hardly find | 15 |
| Their strength to walk or stand. | |
| |
| Rumour had told that once before He fed | |
| Five thousand in the wild, | |
| And satisfied the hungry souls with bread, | |
| And all their fears beguiled. | 20 |
| |
| Oh, was it true that He a feast can make | |
| When man’s resources fail, | |
| And spread His banquet by the lonely lake, | |
| In grassy upland vale? | |
| |
| Can He, with one poor fisher’s scanty store, | 25 |
| For all that crowd provide, | |
| The bread and fish still growing more and more, | |
| Till none are unsupplied? | |
| |
| Yes, He who gives the full corn in the ear, | |
| The olive oil and wine, | 30 |
| Who guides the seasons of the circling year | |
| Through every changing sign, | |
| |
| He can compress within a moment’s space | |
| The magic of the spring, | |
| Seed-time and harvest in one act embrace, | 35 |
| And home the full sheaves bring. | |
| |
| Yes; evermore He feeds the hungry souls | |
| With bounties full and free, | |
| And calms the waters when the thunder rolls, | |
| And storms-blasts sweep the sea. | 40 |
| |
| Our souls were faint; we deemed no helper nigh, | |
| When lo! He gave us bread; | |
| Calm breezes lulled the waters surging high, | |
| And all our terrors fled. | |
| |
| The fragments of God’s store are bounteous feast | 45 |
| To weary souls and faint; | |
| They gather round, the greatest and the least, | |
| The sinner and the saint. | |
| |
| He can refresh, and bid His servants take | |
| The fragments that remain, | 50 |
| And peasant’s meal, if He but bless and break, | |
| Whole thousands can sustain | |
| |
| From out the fulness of His bounty free, | |
| We treasure what is left; | |
| His joy, once known, can never wholly flee, | 55 |
| Though we’re of all bereft. | |
| |
| Through the dark night we journey o’er the hill, | |
| Not knowing where we go; | |
| That food sustains us through the dark hour’s chill | |
| Until the morning glow. | 60 |
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