THE SILENT WARRIORS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 3, 4 November 1892, Page 20

THE SILENT WARRIORS.

Ths ran shone in at the window, On the printer's case and type, And the heaps of mystic letters Were bathed in its golden light; And I thought of the troths there hidden, Of the mighty power there laid, In those piles of dusky metal, When in marshalled ranks arrayed. For by them onr souls find voices For truths the ages have taught; In volumes the dead have treasured, In words of immortal thought; And they have tongnes for our sorrows, And songs of our joys or woe, And in them life's records are written, Of all that we mortals know. As the knights who, clad in armour, Went forth in the olden days To war 'mid the downtrod nations, With wrongs that stood in their ways ; Thus our thoughts in this dusky metal Are clad in their coats of mail, To conquer the wrongs that oppress us, Or evils our folly entail. The sun in its golden glory, Went down 'neath the rim of night, And each leaden shape was gleaming In flames of its dying light; Then stars in their hosts came marchiog, As their silver lances fell And flashed on tbe dull, cold metal, Where truths we know not dwell. A child in his feeble wisdom Might place them with tiny hand, But a king with his Bteel-armed legions In vim would their force withstand ; For they are silent warriors, Whose tents are folded away, Whose footprints go down through the ages, Whose mandates the world shall obey. And a thought in my soul seemed striving, As our own good angel strives, To warm the clay that infolds us And wake from our sluggish lives ; That we, too, are symbols waiting Tbe touch of the Master's hand, When the truths that sleep within us May light up each darkened land ; And each soul in its earthly journey May toil with hope sublime, To leave for the unborn nations Great thoughts on the scroll of time. —Irish Catholic.