Veneration Of Images

A poem by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Thou man, first-comer, whose wide arms entreat,
Gather, clasp, welcome, bind,
Lack, or remember! whose warm pulses beat
With love of thine own kind;

Unlifted for a blessing on yon sea,
Unshrined on this high-way,
O flesh, O grief, thou too shalt have our knee,
Thou rood of every day!