With golden letters set in brave array
Throughout the Church’s record of the year,
The great names of historic saints appear,
Those ringing names, that, as a trumpet, play
Uplifting music o’er a sordid way,
And sound high courage to our earth-dulled ear;
But, underneath those strains, I seem to hear
The silence of the saints that have no day.
Martyrs blood-red, and trodden souls, care-gray,
In hierarchal pride no place they boast;
No candles born for them where pilgrims pray,
No haloes crown their dim and countless host;
And yet--the leaven of their humble sway,
Unrecognized, unguessed, avails the most.
(Text.)--KATHERINE PERRY, _The Reader_.
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