Ordained
1.
THROUGH jewelled windows in the walls
The tempered daylight smiles,
And solemn music swells and falls
Adown these stately aisles;
Beneath that carven chancel- rood
Low murmurs, hushed to silence, brood;
One voice in prayer appeals
For Holy Spirit's quickening grace
To light his now anointed face
Who at the altar kneels.
2.
One hour ago, like us, he trod
Along these cloisters dim —
Now we are bid to reverence God
Made manifest in him;
To mock at our enlightened sense
And dearly won experience,
So far beyond his own;
To take him for our heaven- sent guide
Upon these seas, so wild and wide,
To him as yet unknown.
3.
Unconscious of the coming strife,
Unformed in mind and thought,
Without one ripe idea of life
Save what his school books taught,
An ignorant boy, he vows a vow
To think and feel as he does now
Till his gold locks are grey;
Pledges his word to learn no more —
To add no wisdom to the store
His young mind holds to- day.
4.
How shall he keep this senseless oath
When once a full- grown man?
How shall he check his upward growth
To fit this meagre plan?
Only by ruthless pinching out
Of all the fairest shoots that sprout,
As on a healthy tree,
From his expanding brain and heart —
Defrauding his diviner part
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poem by Ada Cambridge
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