Tabb Centenary Year XXX

Five lyrics by Rev. John B. Tabb.

Outspeeded

To-night the onward-rushing train
   Would bear thee far from me;
But, winged with swifter dreams, again
   My spirit flies to thee.

Nay, speeding far beyond thee, waits
   To welcome thee anew,
Where dawn is opening the gates
   To let the darkness through.

January 1895 (p. 248, Himself and Others)

Communion

Once when my heart was passion-free
   To learn of things divine,
The soul of nature suddenly
   Outpoured itself in mine.

I held the secrets of the deep,
   And of the heavens above;
I knew the harmonies of sleep,
   The mysteries of love.

And for a moment’s interval
   The earth, the sky, the sea—
My soul encompassed, each and all,
   As now they compass me.

To one in all, to all in one—
   Since love the work began—
Life’s ever widening circles run,
   Revealing God and man.

September 1892 (p. 245, Himself and Others)

Import

Thou hast the final touch supplied
That till thy coming was denied—
A single letter in a word
Whose absence all the context blurred;
A missing note that, but for thee,
Had marred the perfect harmony.

October 1909 (p. 251, Himself and Others)

The Pilgrim

When, but a child, I wandered hence,
Another child—sweet Innocence,
   My sister—went with me;
But I have lost her, and am fain
To seek her in the home again
   Where we were wont to be.

1897 (p. 246, Himself and Others)

Our Stars

My twilight is before the dark,
And thine before the day;
O’er both alike a beacon-spark
   To keep us in the way.
The darkness can but brighten mine;
Let not the noon extinguish thine.

1910 (p. 249, Himself and Others)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 05/10/09 07:41:43 PM
Categorized as Father Tabb Centenary Year & Literary.