Sonnet Xcix. Day By Day We Magnify Thee. Poem by Henry Alford

O bare and aimless mockery--``day by day?''
To--morrow, and the next day, and the next,
No praise will hence ascend; no sacred text
Be uttered to the people. Come who may,
For prayer or thought, these gates shall say them nay:
Be they in anguish, or with doubt perplext,
Or with the world's unceasing billows vext,
We lock the church, and order all away.

O low estate of holy hope and faith!
Are we to think that He who hallowed one,
Of all the other days requireth none?
Or that our working--days are safe from death?
Cease your Ambrosian hymn,--or this at most,
Perform the promise, ye who make the boast.