Old priest! is thy life not a rosary?
Five decades and more have been said,
In thy heart the warm splendors of Thabor
Beneath the white snows of thy head!
Fifty years lifting the chalice --
Ah, 'tis Life in this death-darkened land!
Thy clasp may be weak, but the chrism,
Old priest! that anointed thy hand
Is as fresh and as strong in its virtue
As in the five decades agone
Thy young hands were touched with its unction,
And thy vestments of white were put on.
Fifty years! Every day passes
A part of one great, endless feast,
That moves round its orbit of Masses,
And hath nor a West nor an East;
But everywhere hath its pure altars,
At each of its altars a priest
To lift up a Host with a chalice
Till the story of grace shall have ceased.
Fifty years in the feast's orbit,
Nearly two thousand of days;
Fifty years priest in the priesthood,
Fifty years lit with its rays --
Lit them but to reflect them
When the adorers' throngs pass
Out of thy life and its glory
Shining each day from thy Mass.
Half of a century's service!
Wearing thy cassock of black
O'er thy camps, and thy battles, and triumphs!
Old soldier of Jesus! look back
To the day when thou kissed thy first altar
In love with youth's fervor athrill.
From the day when we meet and we greet thee,
So true to the old altar still.
Fifty long years! what if trials
Did oftentimes darken thy way --
They marked, like the shadows on dials,
Thy soul's brightest hour every day.
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