"With gates of silver and bars of gold
Ye have fenced my sheep from their father's fold;
I have heard the dropping of their tears
In heaven these eighteen hundred years."
Ye have fenced my sheep from their father's fold;
I have heard the dropping of their tears
In heaven these eighteen hundred years."
"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt,
We build but as our fathers built;
Behold thine images, how they stand,
Sovereign and sole, through all our land."
We build but as our fathers built;
Behold thine images, how they stand,
Sovereign and sole, through all our land."
Then Christ sought out an artisan,
A low-browed, stunted, haggard man,
And a motherless girl, whose ringers thin
Pushed from her faintly want and sin.
A low-browed, stunted, haggard man,
And a motherless girl, whose ringers thin
Pushed from her faintly want and sin.
These set he in the midst of them,
And as they drew back their garment-hem,
For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he,
"The images ye have made of me!"
—James Russell Lowell.
And as they drew back their garment-hem,
For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he,
"The images ye have made of me!"
—James Russell Lowell.
