Lines, Written in the Catholic Chapel at Portsmouth, March, 1845

By Mrs. M. Hartog

I stood within the stranger’s land,
   In the stranger’s house of prayer;
And much of solemn beauty
   And food for thought was there.

And though I felt not as they felt,
   When at the shrine they bowed;
I prayed for them as there they knelt,
   Though I could not pray aloud.

I heard them breathe the name of one,
   Whom they believed divine;
And I sighed to think their worship
   And their faith were not as mine.

I thought upon thee, Zion,
   I thought upon thee there,
As I stood within the stranger’s land,
   In the stranger’s house of prayer.

I thought upon thy temple,
   With its pure and holy shrine;
And I prayed the faith of all mankind,
   Might be one day as mine.