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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=510848" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Our Lady of the Sackcloth</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">There was a Priest at Philae,<br> Tongue-tied, feeble, and old;<br>And the daily prayer to the Virgin<br> Was all the Office he could.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The others were ill-remembered,<br> Mumbled and hard to hear;<br>But to Mary, the two-fold Virgin,<br> Always his voice rang clear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the congregation mocked him,<br> And the weight of the years he bore,<br>And they sent word to the Bishop<br> That he should not serve them more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">(Never again at the Offering<br> When the Bread and the Body are one:<br>Oh, never the picture of Mary<br> Watching him serve her Son!)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Kindly and wise was the Bishop.<br> Unto the Priest said he: -<br>“Patience till thou art stronger,<br> And keep meantime with me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Patience a little; it may be<br> The Lord shall loosen thy tongue<br>And then thou shalt serve at the Offering<br> As it was when we were young.”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the Priest obeyed and was silent,<br> And the Bishop gave him leave<br>To walk alone in the desert<br> Where none should see him grieve.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">(Never again at the Offering<br> When the Wine and the Blood are one!<br>Oh, never the picture of Mary<br> Watching him honour her Son!)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Saintly and clean was the Bishop,<br> Ruling himself aright<br>With prayer and fast in the daytime<br> And scourge and vigil at night.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Out of his zeal he was minded<br> To add one penance the more –<br>A garment of harshest sackcloth<br> Under the robes he wore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He gathered the cloth in secret<br> Lest any should know and praise –<br>The shears, the palm and the packthread –<br> And laboured it many ways.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But he had no skill in the making,<br> And failed and fretted the while;<br>Till the stood a Woman before him,<br> Smiling as Mothers smile.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her feet were burned by the desert –<br> Like a desert-dweller she trod –<br>Even the two-fold Virgin,<br> Spouse and Bearer of God!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She took the shears and the sacking,<br> The needle and stubborn thread,<br>She cut, she shaped, and she sewed them,<br> And, “This shall be blessed,” she said.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She passed in the white hot noontide,<br> On a wave of the quivering air;<br>And the Bishop’s eyes were opened,<br> And he fell on his face in prayer.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But – far from the smouldering censers –<br> Far from the chanted praise –<br>Oh, far from the pictures of Mary<br> That had watched him all his days –</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Far in the desert by Philae<br> The old Priest walked forlorn,<br>Till he saw in the head of her Riders<br> A Queen of the Desert-born.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">High she swayed on her camel,<br> Beautiful to behold:<br>And her beast was belled with silver,<br> And her veils were spotted with gold!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Low she leaned from her litter –<br> Soft she spoke in his ear: -<br>“Nay, I have watched thy sorrow!<br> Nay, but the end is near!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“For again thou shalt serve at the Offering<br> And thy tongue shall be loosed in praise,<br>And again thou shalt sing unto Mary<br> Who has watched thee all thy days.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Go in peace to the Bishop,<br> Carry him word from me –<br>That the Woman who sewed the sackcloth<br> Would have him set thee free!”</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Rudyard+Kipling">Rudyard Kipling</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=510848" data-title="Our Lady of the Sackcloth de Rudyard Kipling" data-description="There was a Priest at Philae,
 Tongue-tied, feeble, and old;
And the daily prayer to the Virgin
 Was all the Office he could.

The others were ill-remembered,
 Mumbled and hard to hear;
But to Mary, the two-fold Virgin,
 Always his voice rang clea..."></div>
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