Classic Poem

What have we done that we should seek
This Lenten-tide to be forgiven?
Our lips have never dared to speak
Reproach or calumny of Heaven!
Yet to the Lenten-tide belongs
Repentance for some secret wrongs.

What need have we for such distress?
Our hands have never robbed the poor,
We have not spurned in bitterness,
The trembling feet that sought our door;
And yet the Lenten-tide is meant
For men with spirits penitent.

What have we done? Our memories tell
Of scorn, impurity, and hate,
Of pride we have not sought to quell,
Of duty's promptings bidden to wait—
Ah Heaven! that we should have such pride
To sorrow for at Lenten-tide.

What have we done? Our narrow thought
Has limited the Love divine,
And all the flood of truth has sought
In human channels to confine;
The Truth of God, so free and wide,
Condemns us at the Lenten-tide.

The web of life is spun apace,
And many threads are gay and bright,
But some to give the pattern grace
Must bear the impress of the night,
No weaver's hand may cast aside
The dark threads of the Lenten-tide.