For guard needs a brave human Christ.
To guard Him three hours -- what a glory!
With sacrifice splendors aflame!
Three hours -- and He died on His Calvary --
How long hast thou lived for His name?

"Half a century," cries out thy crucifix,
Binding together thy beads;
His look, like thy life, lingers in it,
A light for men's souls in their needs.
Old priest! is thy life not a rosary?
Five decades and more have been said,
In thy heart the warm splendors of Thabor
Beneath the white snows of thy head!

Fifty years lifting the chalice --
Ah, 'tis Life in this death-darkened land!
Thy clasp may be weak, but the chrism,
Old priest! that anointed thy hand
Is as fresh and as strong in its virtue
As in the five decades agone
Thy young hands were touched with its unction,
And thy vestments of white were put on.

Fifty years! Every day passes
A part of one great, endless feast,
That moves round its orbit of Masses,
And hath nor a West nor an East;
But everywhere hath its pure altars,
At each of its altars a priest