To His Eminence Cardinal Newman Poem by John Bannister Tabb

MAY 1879


Father;-for loftier titles cannot hide
The tenderness of thy paternity
From eyes that turn with filial gaze to thee-
Sons of thy Faith across the ocean wide,
Led of thy light from paths unsanctified,
Thine own begotten, though unseen are we.
Thy loss, thy gain, we count our own to be:
And now our hearts exulting in the tide
Of favors shed upon thee from the hand
Whose grace outgrows its giving, fondly glow
With more than silent syllables express-
O, westward, as the sunshine, to our land
Still let thy love, a light perpetual, flow,
Thy children, bowed in reverence, to bless.